Archbishop in charge

In the short interregnum between Archbishops of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York appears to be at the helm. At the House of Commons, he turns out to launch the Church of England’s latest Lent campaign. To be fair, he would have probably done this anyway as the whole ‘Love Life Live Lent’ theme is one that he himself thought up when Bishop of Birmingham.

I can’t help but feel sorr y for the Church at the moment. It has got itself into such a pickle over women bishops and gay marriage. It is right at the crossing point of these key cultural issues, with views that go unchallenged in other faith communities but that arouse secular passions by virtue of its particular position as the established Church.

I grow more and more certain that the vote on women bishops was the right one, because of the flawed measure to consecrate them. It is increasingly apparent that, given the damage done to the Church’s mission and the wide hurt and distress caused, it should never have been put to the vote in this form. In the months leading up, it is possible to discern in retrospect a desperate and rather undignified struggle to get anything on the table. The difficulty of doing this should have caused pause, rather than haste, yet overall it did appear as though it had all taken far too much time already.

Lent is a good time, with a new Archbishop coming in, to reflect on all this. We’ve all suffered a bruising, and nowhere were the consequences more apparent than in the recent special meeting of the House of Laity. In the name of charity, perhaps we can hope in faith for a better 12 months in the light of what we have all learned.