INTRODUCTION
This year's General Synod, the third meeting of the triennium, was held in Limerick City in a hotel with conference facilities. It was the first time that the General Synod had met in the Diocese of Limerick and Killaloe. The Synod passed Bills relating to ecumenical canons, General Synod membership and confirmation registers, as well as the ongoing area of pensions. There was also a Bill fixing anomalies relating to cross-references in the Constitution following the consolidation of part of the Constitution at last year's General Synod. Bills relating to the table of contents of the Book of Common Prayer were also passed.
ECUMENICAL CANONS
Two new sections were added to the Statute of the General Synod governing regulation and management of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. One section related to two honorary lay canons to be appointed by the Archbishop of Dublin in recognition of particular and distinguished service to the cathedral or to the community in the Dioceses of Dublin and Glendalough or to the Church of Ireland. The other section related to two ecumenical canons, again to be appointed by the Archbishop of Dublin. The provisions are similar to those already outlined for ecumenical canons of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin and St Anne's Cathedral, Belfast.
GENERAL SYNOD MEMBERSHIP
This bill provided that a lay member of General Synod who becomes a deacon serving an internship shall be deemed to have resigned his or her membership of the General Synod. The debate on this Bill identified other anomalies in General Synod membership for which legislation may be suggested (for example, membership following retirement and those who are ordained deacon but not serving an internship).
CONFIRMATION REGISTERS
It was recognised that certification of confirmation may be required, for example, when a candidate is being considered for ordained ministry or training as a lay reader, and that the practice of keeping such records varies from parish to parish and diocese to diocese. This Bill requires that each select vestry keep a parish confirmation register of all those confirmed by the bishop in their parish.
PENSIONS
The newly defined Clergy Pension Schemes for Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland were established in 2013. A Bill was brought by the Representative Church Body relating to the old Defined Benefit Scheme known as the Clergy Pension Fund (which is closed to any further entrants). Pension schemes in the Republic of Ireland are required to make an annual revaluation of the preserved benefits of deferred members by the rate prescribed annually by the Minister for Social Protection. The Bill provided that future revaluations be applied in accordance with the relevant statutory provision rather than applying the same percentage increase as is applied to pensions in payment. (The new wording also ensured the removal of the word ‘increase’, because a negative revaluation rate had been prescribed.) The changes were to take effect from 1 June 2017 and would affect the 54 deferred members of the Clergy Pensions Fund (those members who left service prior to reaching their normal retirement age).
BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER
Following resolutions in 2016, Special Bills for the amendment of the Book of Common Prayer were passed. (Special Bills relate to modifications or alternations to the articles, doctrines, rites, rubrics or formularies of the Church. The three readings of the Bill are made over two sessions of the General Synod, ie two years, rather than the three days of one session of the General Synod, and require consent of two-thirds of each order present and voting.) The Bills in question related to including an alteration to the table of readings in all future printings of the Book of Common Prayer.
OTHER DEBATES
Reporting on its four years of work, the Church of Ireland Select Committee on Human Sexuality recommended that ‘the bishops further examine the unresolved theological differences, as represented in the select committee, with a view to making a proposal to facilitate the way forward’. This report was followed by a private member's motion which requested the House of Bishops to ‘investigate a means to develop sensitive, local pastoral arrangements for public prayer and thanksgiving’ for those ‘who enter into loving committed and legally recognised, same-sex relationships’. There was an extensive but respectful debate. The motion was defeated narrowly in both orders, slightly greater in the order of clergy.
Following last year's report (and withdrawn Bill) from the Commission on Episcopal Ministry, the bishops of the two dioceses whose diocesan boundaries had been most under consideration – Tuam, Killala and Achonry, and Limerick and Killaloe – reported that they were in ongoing discussions about possible restructuring.
