ARCHBISHOP'S ADDRESS: APRIL
In his address to the April meeting, the archbishop raised questions about the high business rates placed on the steel industry in the UK and the crisis faced by Welsh steelworkers, the elections for members of the Welsh Assembly and the forthcoming referendum on Europe. He reminded the Governing Body that the right to vote was won at a price and that, as Christians, we had a moral duty to exercise that right. The archbishop, considering the recent death of his wife, Hilary, also spoke of bereavement and dying in general. Palliative care and the hospice movement had come a long way in fifty years; if he had not already been persuaded by the arguments against assisted dying, watching the care and the gentleness of hospice nurses, for whom nothing was too much trouble, would have convinced him.
PRAYERS FOR THOSE IN CIVIL PARTNERSHIPS OR SAME-SEX MARRIAGES
The Bench of Bishops released a joint pastoral letter in response to consultations and debates on same-sex marriage across the Church in Wales in 2015, as well as to a statement from the Primates of the Anglican Communion in January 2016. They acknowledged that, while the consultations showed that the Church was not yet ready to allow or bless same-sex marriage, the debate was not over. They committed themselves to working for a church in which gay and lesbian people were ‘fully affirmed as equal disciples’. Prayers to be said with couples had been devised by the bishops and circulated to all clerics in the province.
PORVOO CANON AMENDMENT
A Bill to Enable the Addition of Churches to the Second Schedule of the Porvoo Declaration Canon 1995 was brought before the Governing Body, allowing for the addition of two new churches to Schedule 2 of the original Canon. The Bill was considered to be non-controversial: it went straight to a vote and was passed unanimously.
CLIMATE CHANGE
The Governing Body passed a motion on climate change and adopted the new ethical investment policy that the Church in Wales will not knowingly invest in any company which derives more than 10 per cent of turnover from the extraction of thermal coal or the production of oil from tar sands.
ST PADARN'S INSTITUTE
The Governing Body received a report from St Michael's College and thanked the staff, past and present, of St Michael's College and St Seiriol's Centre and all those engaged in training for ministry over the years. Ministry training in the Church in Wales is being modernised, and the Governing Body welcomed St Padarn's Institute as the new theological education institute of the Church in Wales and endorsed the initiatives in new forms of ministry.
AGE LIMITS AND RETIREMENT AND PENSIONABLE AGE
In April, the Governing Body received a report drafted by a small working group set up by the Standing Committee of the Governing Body to review age limits in the Constitution for memberships of various committees and for offices in the Church. A lively debate followed, focusing for the most part on the maximum age for ordination. The report was received by the members but the working group were asked to recognise that a maximum age for ordination as stated in the report would be contested if brought before the Governing Body as part of a Bill.
Following on from that report, the September meeting considered motions regarding the retirement ages for two categories of offices. A retirement age of 75 for all licensed lay ministers was endorsed by the Governing Body. However, it was considered appropriate to reduce the retirement age of all legal appointees to 70 in order to bring that category into line with their clerical colleagues serving alongside them in the courts and tribunals of the Church. The September meeting also raised the normal pensionable age for clergy from 65 to 67 with effect from 1 January 2017.
ARCHBISHOP'S ADDRESS: SEPTEMBER
September saw Archbishop Barry Morgan's final address to the Governing Body before his retirement in January 2017. He commented that he and his fellow bishops had been criticised for being ‘swayed by the liberal culture of our age’ and having ‘ignored Holy Scripture’ by issuing prayers earlier in the year that could be said with same-sex couples following their civil partnership or marriage. He compared biblical interpretations of same-sex relationships with those of slavery (a practice once defended by the Church) and stated that, just as opinions on slavery had changed, so might the Church's view on same-sex relationships. He reassured the Governing Body that the bishops were not abandoning Holy Scripture but interpreting it in a way that was consistent with the main thrust of the ministry of Jesus, who ministered to those who were excluded, marginalised and abandoned and to those who were regarded as impure and unholy by the religious leaders of his day because of their gender, age, morality or sexuality. He reminded those present that ‘taking Holy Scripture seriously means paying attention to Jesus' ministry of inclusivity’.
ARCHIEPISCOPAL SEE
The September meeting was told that a working group was to be set up by the Standing Committee to consider the question of a permanent archiepiscopal see. The group would start by looking again at the role of the archbishop.
LAUNCH OF SAFEGUARDING POLICY
The new and more robust Church in Wales Safeguarding Policy was launched at the September meeting and received by the Governing Body. A few members thought the policy to be cumbersome but it was gratefully received by an overwhelming majority of members, who were encouraged that it would provide a strong basis for an even safer church for children and other vulnerable groups.
PRIVATE MEMBER'S MOTION
A private member's motion was submitted to the September meeting which proposed to remove all age limits relating to churchwardens and sub-wardens with immediate effect, strongly to encourage dioceses to enforce the six-year rule in relation to the length of time a churchwarden or sub-warden may hold office and to monitor the need for and number of dispensations granted. After an animated debate, which saw amendments to the motion being suggested, the amended version was voted on.
The removal of retirement ages for churchwardens was not supported by the members and the retirement age of 75 therefore remains. However, the second part of the motion, which charged archdeacons to enforce the six-year rule concerning the length of officeFootnote 4 and to monitor the need for and number of dispensations made was carried, with a further requirement that tasked the Standing Committee to review and clarify the role of churchwardens and to identify ways of encouraging church members to take on those responsibilities.
ADMISSION TO COMMUNION
After receiving the appropriate doctrinal and legal advice, the Bench of Bishops have given permission for all those who are baptised in the name of the Trinity to receive Holy Communion at the celebration of the Holy Eucharist within the dioceses and jurisdictions of the Church in Wales from the first Sunday in Advent, 27 November 2016. No-one is required so to receive, but no barrier should be erected to prevent all those who are baptised from making their communion other than that which is required by civil law. Baptism is the full and complete rite of initiation whereby one becomes a full member of the Church and therefore able to receive communion. Confirmation then becomes the service for those who wish to affirm their commitment to the Church or be commissioned for service within it. The decision was conveyed to the members of the Governing Body through a pastoral letter which is now available to all clergy.Footnote 5
MEMBERSHIP AND FINANCE
All traditional measures of attendance had demonstrated a substantial decline between 2014 and 2015, with average adult Sunday attendance and average attendance of under-18s falling faster than the longer-term trend; average Sunday attendance was reported as less than 1 per cent of the population of Wales. It was noted that the average attendance and communicant figures did not provide a full picture of participation in church life. In recent years, officers had been able to collate figures for attendances at other major acts of worship that were not covered by the traditional categories. Such additional services – which included civic services, family services, Remembrance, carol and Christingle services – registered a total attendance of some 206,000 in 2015, in comparison with 152,000 in 2014.
However, the September meeting of the Governing Body wished to demonstrate its concern at the decline in numbers of the traditionally reported categories and, through an amendment to the original motion, received the report ‘with a heavy heart’. It urged the Standing Committee to identify areas of growth and investigate the factors behind such growth, with suggestions on what might be learned for the future.
REPORT FROM THE EVANGELISM CONFERENCE
Representatives from every diocese in the Church in Wales had met in Cardiff earlier in the year, where they were joined by a number of others in Christian ministry (such as Urban Saints Wales, who share a common vision of sharing the gospel with the province), who provided examples of resources available to churches. Group discussions had allowed diocesan representatives to ask questions about the commitment to evangelism within their own dioceses and they were encouraged to take questions raised at the symposium to their bishops and senior staff for consideration and action. The responses from those groups were to be fed into the work of the Provincial Evangelism Group in October, which would bring proposals before the Governing Body in 2017.
FAREWELLS
At its meeting in September, the Governing Body bade farewell to its retiring president, the Most Revd Dr Barry C Morgan, with a standing ovation, thanking him for his outstanding pastoral gifts and leadership of the Church. Sadly, this was also the last Governing Body session for the Rt Revd J Wyn Evans, Bishop of St Davids, who was to retire in October 2016; members showed their appreciation with much applause for his work and long service to the Church.
