Synod welcomes Pilling

Sir Joseph Pilling said the ‘bewildering rate of change’ in society over sexuality makes the Church’s examination of it ‘inevitable’ rather than ‘irrelevant’. Despite the Pilling Report not suggesting any change in the Church of England’s teaching of the right context for sexual activity being between a man and a woman, he said it was timely and needed work. It is more than 22 years since the last review of human sexuality was published, and his group did not think it was the final word on the subject, Synod were told. Sir Joseph added: “After two years of work, the group on human sexuality would say there’s no one with nothing to learn by talking and listening and that most of us have rather a lot to learn.” He explained that with some ‘honourable exceptions’ in certain dioceses, the Church of England generally has not ‘grasped the nettle of talking and listening and pondering’.

The Rt Rev Steven Croft, Bishop of Sheffield, praised the work of the Pilling group on behalf of the College of Bishops. “It is plain that the bishops, the advisers, the members of staff and Sir Joseph himself worked hard on a sensitive topic that none of them had a burning desire to wade in to,” the Bishop said. “The whole College of Bishops was immensely grateful for the way the task was undertaken,” he said. When they met last month, the College agreed it right to set the tone of the next phase of reflection on this report. That is to make clear that the ‘welcome we offer to people in the church is the same whatever their sexual orientation may be’, and a clear ‘repentance for any homophobia in the past’. “As a Church, we do ourselves and others no good if we are seen as homophobic,” the Bishop said.