Now is probably not the time to hold a lessons-learned enquiry into the Winchester affair. Clearly the retirement of Bishop Dakin in February 2022 is the outcome of detailed and painful negotiations, involving many stakeholders. It can hardly be said to be tidy for any of the parties. +Dakin will leave behind various strands of his episcopal mission initiatives, for the time being, still intact. It is, however, hard to see how these will flourish without the input of his leadership. He has not, to judge from his published video statement, so far come to terms with the wreckage caused by his time in office. He wants to depart with his head held high and so we are regaled with his version of what he has achieved in ten years as bishop. Allowing him to save face in this way was, we suspect, the only way to way to achieve his cooperation. The departure is going to be a very costly one for the Church nationally and locally.
The main question that occurs to many of us immediately is to ask: who will now want to be Bishop of Winchester and fill these particular shoes? Who will have the stamina to provide for the necessary pastoral healing for many traumatised clergy and laity who are being left behind in the diocese? Who will also have the decisive management skills to recover the financial equilibrium which the diocese needs to move into the future? Who will want the responsibility of deciding on redundancies that may now be necessary? +Dakin appears to have created a number of new structures to further his priorities for mission. These may no longer be required now. We are asking a great deal of any likely successor. Do all these qualities exist in a single person at present available? In the secular world, one can imagine that in this situation an expensive team of consultants would be sent in to sort out the mess and then produce reports to set out possible ways forward. That is not the way the Church normally works. It is probably going to fall to a single episcopal figure, temporary or permanent, to gather up all the threads of the painful past and take the Diocese into the future. Candidates without the qualities of the Archangel Gabriel need not apply!
At present there are, or are about to be, seven vacancies for diocesan bishops in England. This represents one sixth of the total of the House of Bishops. This number of simultaneous vacancies is probably unprecedented at one moment of time. In this blog post, I want to reflect on what we expect of our bishops in the Church of England. The first thing I need to mention is that the church does not provide any systematic training for the post. Some senior clergy are provided with elements of an MBA course but most of the episcopal skills are learned on the job. Most bishops that are chosen probably have one or two qualities identified as making them ‘episcopabile’. It is then hoped that, with support, other necessary skills will be picked up along the way. The real problem for many bishops is that when they realise that they lack areas of skill needed for the episcopal task, their lives may acquire serious levels of stress. They recognise that they cannot live up to the expectations put on them by others.
Speaking very broadly, there are three main areas of responsibility for an Anglican Diocesan bishop. Excellence in, or at least competence, is needed in all three if they are to achieve ‘success’ or job satisfaction. The first gift is possibly the most commonly held by bishops, and it draws naturally on their years as parish priests. That is the pastoral gift and the skills acquired through developing its use. Congregations and clergy love it when a bishop takes the trouble to remember names and details of the personal life of the one being addressed. They also like a good listener, someone who seems to understand the various problems of church life. The pastor Bishop is going to be the one who, after his departure, is remembered with affection and gratitude.
The second area of competence much needed in a bishop is theological skills. We expect our bishops to be well educated and able to preach and teach well in a way that inspires. In the ancient Church, the role of the bishop to be arbiter of doctrinal orthodoxy was considered important. Today, we might require a bishop to rule on the limits of what is and what is not acceptable doctrine. This episcopal role in speaking with authority on doctrinal matters is important, but seldom exercised. Any reluctance by bishops to give theologically informed statements is a great loss in our present church climate. In the absence of robust theological leadership from members of the House of Bishops, we look to other spokespeople to comment on the issues of the day with a theological perspective. These theological articulations are not always successful but at least there are contemporary voices in the public square prepared to think theologically, even it is not often our church leaders. One of the problems in the Winchester diocese is that there seemed to be, on the part of the Bishop, little experience or understanding of the broader traditions of Anglicanism. A good grasp of church history and a firm respect for all the traditions of Anglicanism should also be something we can expect of all our bishops. Any sense of having your version of Anglicanism devalued by a diocesan bishop will be a cause of stress and make for a difficult environment for the clergy to work in.
The third area of excellence required of every bishop is possibly the most difficult. It is the ability to manage, organise and supervise other people who themselves are doing a whole variety of complicated management tasks within a diocese. To take one area, the safeguarding arena, we find a maze of potential traps into which anyone in charge can easily fall. Safeguarding misjudgements and failures on the part of bishops are, it seems, extremely common. In some cases, we suspect that there has been a failure to be concerned with detail. Another common failing is to allow the needs of the diocese or the safeguarding unit to take precedence over the individual. Sometimes there is a failure to follow up what is going on, making the unwise assumption that everyone is on top of their tasks. The Church has an extra problem in that it has tendency to hold on to employees well past their ‘sell-by date’ and is slow to move them on when they are clearly not performing. There is a particular problem in redeploying the clergy themselves. Bishops must find it stressful to know that clergyperson X is incompetent and even causing harm, but there is little that can be done practically. One of the major headaches of a future Bishop of Winchester is to know what to do with all the relatively new appointees of +Dakin. One of his controversial decisions was to take in-house responsibility for the training of ordinands. Apart from being an enormously expensive decision, this now leaves a cluster of, no doubt, well-qualified staff who may not be required in a streamlined future diocesan structure. The mission ideas of +Dakin are also unlikely to coincide with the priorities of a future bishop. Their value to the Diocese is questionable, particularly now that the programme leadership is being withdrawn through the resignation of the Bishop.
I do not think it is unfair to suggest that none of the bishops in the Church of England are completely competent in each of these three areas, managerial, pastoral and theological. In the secular world, as a matter of course, one would set up an academy to train candidates to achieve excellence or improvement in all these required skills. Such an academy for bishops does not, of course, exist and the lack of such an institution means that all the 42 diocesan bishops struggle on, trying to do their job in spite of serious gaps in the skills they need. This sense of struggle, alongside actual incompetence, comes over in the one area of bishop’s work that I do hear a lot about: safeguarding. To say that some dioceses are unable to deliver a professional and competent service in the area of safeguarding is an understatement. In some places there seems to be near chaos. This dysfunction is probably not always the bishop’s direct fault, but bishops still find that any blame which is embedded in the processes eventually ends up on their desk. A recent story of poor and sloppy safeguarding practice resulted in a coroner, investigating the death of a priest Alan Griffin, writing a critical letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London. This was an excoriating criticism of internal Anglican processes. Such cases will certainly add massively to episcopal stress. Many bishops might wish that the role was purely pastoral: the role they remember as parish priests. In practice their dealings with individuals, clergy and lay, are wrapped up with many other factors, involving legal, managerial and safeguarding issues. Many bishops, I suspect, go to sleep at night without a sense of having been able to do anything really well. There are just too many pieces of unfinished business in their work with people and structures. These lead to no tidy or complete outcomes.
A couple of years ago, three advertisements for suffragan bishops appeared at the same time in the Church Times. I then asked the question here on this blog, whoever would want to be a bishop? The same question has to be asked again, now that there are seven diocesan vacancies in the House of Bishops. All the compensatory perks of being a bishop – extra pay, secretarial backup, enhanced housing and increased social status – seem to pale into insignificance when laid alongside the appalling stress of the new responsibilities. Little preparation exists within the current clerical training process. Some people, no doubt, should be bishops. These may be the same people who have a realistic understanding of themselves. They may realise that their qualities and qualifications do not add up to being sufficient to ward off all the appalling potential stresses of high office. As Groucho Marx once said, ‘i don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member’. It may be that the only people who are suitable for such high office, are those who are strongly resistant to achieving it. The ones who seek or allow themselves to be promoted to what is essentially such an impossible job are those who have, perhaps, already shown themselves disqualified from being considered.
It is rare to find a single person with all those qualities cited. Indeed further qualities will probably be needed such as a high capacity, a thick skin but a high sensitivity.
In other areas of life this is achieved by having a team consisting of the complementing requisite abilities, for example a sports team. The captain takes responsibility but has specific skill sets in her team which she may not possess. As an outsider the bishop remit appears to be far too wide.
Another way to look at it is to see a priest develop from initial calling to parish ministry. If this is your sole area of experience, even after a couple of curate roles and a vicarage, it’s unlikely to equip you for all the leadership areas Stephen cites. Of course elevation through the ranks should provide more than a taster of what’s going to be needed at the top. But often isn’t.
As a regular observer of clerical processes, it does seem that “suitable” candidates for bishop are somehow head-hunted pre-ordination and somehow fast tracked through the system, arriving at the top without a huge amount of understanding of existing traditions and ways of doing things. It gives the appearance that (it is hoped) this hot new blood will not be sidelined from making tough decisions, or will not realise early enough exactly what they are getting into, and end up taking the wrap for an impossible task which inevitably fails. I note the vacancies. Perhaps those well versed priests know already it’s a poisoned chalice that only an outsider would grasp.
With TD’s exit, the Church has created a precedent for removal, even if it’s dressed up as a face-saving retirement. Meanwhile dozens of quieter bishops carry on working, but not necessarily addressing the deep changes required across the board for survival.
You sense that TD was given considerable latitude to address the existential crisis, and then when the mutiny started, they eased him out.
No outsider with strong leadership abilities and with some of the qualities cited (and with the ability to delegate bits she can’t do) would touch being a bishop-as-a-career path with a barge pole now.
The very administration of the Church needs to be fundamentally restructured. And quickly. The former is highly unlikely, and the latter would be unprecedented.
Stephen, I’m interested that you’ve found the ‘pastoral gift’ to be the most common among bishops. In my experience it’s actually quite rare. That may reflect a lack of overlap in the dioceses we’ve served in, or perhaps a difference in age? The few who were good pastorally, such as Nigel Stock, stand out in my memory.
Nowadays bishops seem to be selected for managerial qualifications, and the lack of substantial parish incumbent experience of several will not help them to pastor clergy. A Unite regional rep told me that after 2 years in the job bishops have forgotten what it’s like to run a parish, and therefore don’t understand the pressures their clergy are under. This is exacerbated by the rapid changes in parish ministry.
As for Winchester – the diocese of my birth – heaven help the brave person who takes that diocese on. But heaven send they are a healer.
Interestingly, I note that Steve uses the female pronoun throughout his comment. The thought had already occurred to me that a woman might be the next Bishop of Winchester. I think there is a possible candidate already in the wings, but we can only wait and see. I usually get reprimanded here for saying that, but it is the only realistic course. I’m not clear how far, if at all, grass roots opinions come into play in the selection of bishops.
My anecdotal experience of female clergy, I couldn’t extrapolate to the general population as the sample is statistically too small. However the ones I’ve been acquainted with have been from good to excellent in my opinion. Still in a minority, it seems only fair to use their pronoun first. “She/he” seems too cumbersome.
Regarding recruitment of new bishops, I have a sense of dread building, with visions of blackballing, private dining clubs, politicians getting involved and other processes almost guaranteed to provide a less than ideal candidate.
Another aspect of the bishop’s role needs to be considered and that is its “ceremonial”nature. Almost like a sort of clerical monarchy, this is a fair amount of what the role originally comprised. Again I think the remit is far too broad. If I could design the system, I’d separate out some of these roles into different people.
Just use the pronoun “they”?
Perhaps, Janet, I should rephrase my comment on pastoral ability to say that this is the quality in a bishop that we should most commonly expect to find. It is also true of vicars but it is sadly often absent there as well. The fact is that management on the scale of Diocesan bishops is not taught at college and this failure is painfully obvious in many of the accounts that come my way.
In Winchester at present! The cleric I spoke to said just it was embarrassing! It should have been properly sorted out by the Diocese before it became public. I’m sure that it was meant to be taken purely at face value. “It should have been dealt with”!
I’ve read the coroner’s report you link to and it has some puzzling, as well as shocking, features. Who, for instance, is meant by the phrase “the chief operating officer of the the Anglican diocese of London and Westminster”?
As far as I know, neither the post nor the diocese exist. At least no one ever refers to them as that. Is it supposed to be Richard Chartres?
The Coroner seems to be referring to the Two Cities (City of London and Westminster) segment of London Diocese, which is under the direct care of Dame Bp. Sarah Mullally (or is it Bishop Dame?).
Rt. Rev. And Rt. Hon. Dame Sarah etc
As you say, the Diocese of London and Westminster does not exist. Very simply, the Coroner made a mistake. The Prevention of Future Deaths Report was actually addressed to the Archbishop of Canterbury, but the Bishop of London has acknowledged in a public statement that it is a matter for the Diocese of London to respond. These comments have somehow strayed onto the Winchester thread!
My plan has been as follows:
1. Transfer title in all of the buildings serving pre-1829 parish foundations (and the best of those after that date) to a national agency (an emanation of DDCMS), plus all cathedrals.
2. Take about £6 billion of the Commissioners’ £9.3 billion and give it to the agency. The Church gets a perpetual free right of use to the whole stock in return. The stock (paid for out of charitable donations and past taxation) is therefore secured from privatisation. The agency has the economies of scale and heft to secure discounted materials and labour which individual PCCs will never attain. The Church is therefore relieved of the burden of repairing the stock. A large portion of the £6 billion is money which the Commissioners have generated thanks to the parish share system: this divestment would effectively return that money to the parishes in maintenance support and insurance cover.
3. Transfer all diocesan and remaining parochial assets to the Commissioners to augment the latter’s capital and to offset the transfer of the £6 billion. The Commissioners would then cover all of the administration and finance, generating economies of scale which PCCs, DACs and DBFs will never achieve. There would also be a single safeguarding team.
4. The dioceses would then cease to have administrative and financial functions, and be retained as purely pastoral agencies. Incumbents and bishops alike would be able to concentrate on the pastoral and mission activities for which they have been trained; they would no longer have to function as adjuncts to the heritage industry or as CEOs (they presumably did not take orders to function as such).
In that way, the *only* factors to be taken into consideration in the appointment of bishops would be their pastoral skills and theological knowledge. Their administrative ability or incompetence would be neither here nor there.
Also, there should be fewer dioceses and fewer bishops. Caroline Spelman and her team need to seize this opportunity to rationalise the dioceses, although this should not (as in Leeds) result in yet more middle management.
The “plant”, i.e. buildings definitely need to be looked after by experts. The problem is, it’s never for ever. The monarchy gave up millions in assets to fund their future, not that long ago. But people have forgotten and complain that they are getting money. How long before people are moaning about the church “sponging” off the tax payer because they don’t pay rent?
Many thanks. However, scarcely anyone complains about it in France, where arrangements of that type have been in place since 1905, and that country has a far more vigorous anti-clerical tradition. Since 1905 the great abbeys and cathedrals have been a charge to the general taxpayer, and the parish churches have been a charge to the local taxpayer (by commune). The flaw with that arrangement is that thousands of tiny communes lack the taxing power to finance adequate maintenance.
My draft bill stated that if the £6 billion dowry fell below a certain amount, or if the assets of the Commissioners (drawn up from capitular and parochial funds) rose above a certain level, then the Commissioners would be obliged to make a further contribution. I inserted that clause to deal with that potential political problem.
However, this is a problem of education. The Church needs to explain to the public how it is funded: even a great many people within the Church don’t understand. Unfortunately, if the dioceses and Commissioners did try to explain how it is funded, the regressive nature of that funding settlement would become obvious immediately, to the great discredit and embarrassment of the hierarchy, Synod and the Commissioners. In this sense, they presumably reason that deliberate opacity and obscurity is the least worst option.
In addition, the buildings are arguably the most important heritage asset of the country, bar the landscape itself. I think that the taxpayer should continue to make a contribution, but only once it has been demonstrated to the public (via the £6 billion disendowment) that the Church is definitely not free riding on the taxpayer. That is one of the reasons why I proposed such a large number: the Church has to be ‘seen’ to pay in order that its future in every community is secured. It’s a two-way street.
And I must stress again that the Commissioners assets have only waxed as they have because of the way in which money has been drawn up by local communities, who make contributions (i.e., the parish share) in the reasonable belief that the Church authorities are not going to shutter the church buildings for which they have made those contributions in good faith. The Church has already appropriated (stolen?) parochial assets and glebe since 1976. By taking money away from the Commissioners to secure the buildings, the Church would only be returning to local communities the capital which has been appropriated from them. Fair’s fair.
As per ‘Il Gattopardo’ (1958), ‘everything must change so that things can stay the same’.
Interesting, Froghole. I like the way you have come up with a clear proposal. Thanks
Interesting ideas certainly, and with my ‘Member of the Construction History Society’ hat on, quite tempting.
However, this does pre-suppose that the proposed National Agency would fulfill its guardianship in perpetuity.
You might have thought that this was what the erstwhile British Waterways Board was supposed to do with heritage canals, but after a few decades it found it less troublesome to give them away to a charitable organisation to look after….
With my Christian hat on, and trusting God to further His purposes, I feel that churches have evolved over the centuries to adapt to contemporary needs and this would be far more difficult if they were owned by a secular agency.
Many thanks, but having attended services at more than 5,000 churches, and having seen the age distribution of the congregations, I would suggest that adapting to ‘contemporary needs’ means closing all but a couple of hundred and selling the rest. If God has His purposes, they are evidently not intended to benefit the Church of England. ‘Trusting in God’ to work out His purpose is something I tend to read as code for mass closures: it is a neat device for suggesting that those Christians who do care about the buildings lack adequate faith and/or are not proper Christians.
The 1905 settlement has persisted in France for 116 years and no one is proposing that it be changed. I have suggested that the agency be established by statute; the agency would be a charity, but the secretary of state would have certain reserve powers in relation to it. The Waterways Board was an attempt by Ernest Marples in 1963 to subvert the nationalisation of canals which had been effected by Alfred Barnes in 1947 (the BTC): this was all of a piece with the denationalisation of road haulage and steel. Some people might recall that Marples’ construction company (Marples Ridgway) had a direct financial interest in motorway construction and the subversion of rival forms of transport, whether canals or trains: he therefore acted as minister of transport under a flagrant conflict of interest which makes the behaviour of some of the current crew look amateurish. Marples – the bookies’ dodger from central casting – died conveniently in Monaco, having fled there to avoid prosecution by the Inland Revenue.
Also, I understand that the main initiative to abolish British Waterways came not from the government, as from its own management, for reasons best understood by them. However, as you probably know, it is still in receipt of significant grants from DEFRA. I would also suggest that parish churches are a very much more important part of the national heritage than canals, which were the primary mode of freight transportation for scarcely a single generation.
If anyone has a credible plan to retain the buildings: (i) for their original purpose; and (ii) for public benefit, then I would very much like to know. All other schemes circulated to date are based on piecemeal arrangements which will be less likely to survive (e.g., tiny trusts that will likely not outlive their founders and cannot generate adequate economies of scale, but which will also be spurned by many incumbents).
Every time I quote the example of a priest I know who has eight mediaeval churches in Dorset to maintain and, of course, loyal but small rural congregations to minister to, I’m told of even far greater numbers elsewhere, I think 16 was once mentioned in East Anglia. I have no doubt that the entire building ‘stock’ of churches should be transferred to a national body by legislation and that body having permanent statutory status with some necessary discretionary powers. Listed building status will always afford some measure of protection. Dormant, or actually expanding, funds held by the Commissioners should be used to facilitate this. All power to your proposals!
Many thanks, Mr Wateridge! I suspect that my proposals will get nowhere. As Margaret has written in her dispiriting message, the authorities are not amenable to any diversity of opinion.
There are a number of monster benefices in Winchester diocese, thanks to Trevor Willmott (whom I saw recently in action at an 11 AM service at Butleigh in Somerset); he repeated that exercise in Canterbury diocese.
There are the ‘mission communities’ in dioceses like Carlisle and Exeter, where groupings comfortably in excess of 10 units are now the norm.
In St Edmundsbury & Ipswich, it is still rare to find a grouping in excess of 10, although the Saints and Halesworth benefices fall into that category (a few churches in those groups have faded away almost completely: Ilketshall St Lawrence, Walpole, Thorington, etc.).
However, Norwich is making more concerted attempts to essay larger groups (and this appears to be a tendency (the West Norfolk Priory group in that part of Ely diocese in Norfolk has 12 units, one of which – Wimbotsham – is a shell after a devastating fire, plus another, South Runcton, which is being vested in the FFC): the Reepham & Wensum team led the way on that. However, a number of effectively redundant churches in Norwich are being shunted into the Diocesan Churches Trust, since the Norfolk Churches Trust is at capacity.
Lincoln diocese is another area known to me with massive groups: the Horncastle team (thinned lately by the sale of Market Stainton, and the effective closure of High Toynton in the wake of a collapsed tower), and the Bolingbroke team (with 35 units, though thinned by the closure of Eastville and Midville, two of the three units established under the Fen Churches Act 1812). All this started with Arthur Smith’s formation of the South Ormsby Group (since incorporated into a larger unit) in 1949, with 15 churches, several of which have since been closed (Farforth as recently as January last year, though it was well attended when I went there); he was later archdeacon of Lincoln. This eventually became a nation-wide model. Lincoln is the diocese that worries me the most.
And as for rural Wales…
Also, Salisbury diocese now has some enormous units: think of the Chalke Valley, Nadder Valley, and the two Wylye Valley benefices in south Wiltshire, or in Dorset the Beaminster team (14 units plus the closed church of Mapperton, owned by the Montagu earls of Sandwich, which has a couple of services a year), the Golden Cap team (12 units plus the former parish church serving the Pilsdon community, with regular services), or the Melbury team, which stretches from the Somerset border to within shouting distance of Dorchester: 14 units plus Stockwood (CCT, where the is an annual service), Toller Fratrum (which is under a private trust after a falling out with the authorities, and where the is a monthly service, and Melbury Sampford (where there are several services a year, but the historic parish, which is contiguous with the demesne of Melbury House, is now owned by the Fox-Strangways family).
A very interesting article as always. Thank you for your clarity of mind and precise analysis of the situation.
The reality is that, those clergy who have a more critical view, or who speak up or question the status quo are “silenced” at diocesan level and excluded from promotion. I myself, after asking questions about financial decisions at diocesan synod, and about the lack of responsibility for decisions given to the same synod (having sat through a couple of ssynods where for the whole six hours of the meeting the synodical members were not being asked for their views or allowed to vote on a single decision, merely sitting through a whole agenda of “to receive the report…”, And spoke up about the need for synod members to read reports prior to meetings when clearly this was not being done and to come prepared with questions, I was summoned to the bishop’s office. Without warning what it was about, the bishop, almost apologetically, told me that senior staff had charged him with speaking to me to tell me to stop asking questions as “it made senior staff uncomfortable”.
Having been told I was on track to training for senior posts, that was subsequently removed and I was even blocked when applying for other parish posts. I have since managed to escape but only by taking a minor role in another parish having resigned from synod and removed myself from all the diocesan committees I was on. However, a friend and colleague who had the same experience as I did whenever he spoke up, continues to be blocked from applying to other parishes and his life is being made very awkward.
Part of the issue of “blocking” is that the same people who we have to speak up to, are the same ones who then shortlist for other posts and recommend for promotion/senior posts. While this system continues, the clergy who have the vision, passion and energy to bring about changes in the CofE will continue to be squeezed out and silenced, either explicitly as in my case or by other means. Many clergy also leave by the back door, moving to work in para church organisations, charities, or even other denominations. While this continues to be the case, where only those that are diocesan “pets”, and who tow the line of existing senior staff or diocesan policy, only those fitting the existing mould will be promoted and the failings will be perpetuated for another generation.
Those of us who could be a voice of change, are being excluded by those who hold power. I have no reason to believe that the same isn’t true in Winchester diocese too, and that within the ranks of the clergy are many capable and visionary priests who have the means to bring about change butwho will not be given the chance or platform for their voices to be heard.
Thank you very much for these important insights, which are depressing indeed. It seems that, even if the Church has become relatively less antipathetic towards diversity of background or sexual preference, it is still hostile towards diversity of thought.
If it remains this susceptible to groupthink, and if its middle managers are really that insecure (as they have good cause to be), then it suggests that that middle managers have now become a self-serving ‘interest’ whose very existence is a direct threat to the welfare of the wider institution. If bishops are unwilling to stand up to this interest (and it would appear that many of them have emanated from the ranks of this interest, so will be reluctant to bite the hand that has fed them), then they are truly in office and not in power. That therefore leads me to conclude that the real power base within the Church is the middle management nomenklatura (further parallels with the waning days of the USSR). This is an interest which will probably talk freely about the need for ‘change’, provided it is only that change which best serves its interests. Naturally, this nomenklatura will conflate its own interests with those of the wider Church.
Many thanks again.
Margaret, that’s awful. I’d been on Diocesan synod about two minutes before I discovered that who was allowed to go on a certain committee had been decided over coffee. By the time I got there and offered it was sorted. No, I wasn’t put on a list, no election, sorry, we don’t need you. It’s totally corrupt.
As for mission communities, could have been an exciting opportunity to work ecumenically with the Methodists and the United Reform churches, and to have lay leadership of the communities, but that kind of shrivelled on the vine. No idea how it’s working in practice I have to say.
Margaret. Thank you for your contribution. If you are in post, it seems that you need considerable quantities of stamina to challenge the system. That perhaps is a challenge to those of us who are retired who can voice criticisms more freely. My next blog post is going to consider these anomalies. The power of patronage keeps most clergy subservient. Not healthy at all
Thank you stephe. You are right, and I look forward to reading your thoughts on this.
I realise that you’re using the term “patronage” in its more general sense, but it would be interesting to know how far the traditional system of private or lay patronage survives. Is it important in the Church today?
Private patronage is a shadow of its former self: it is not only that the wings of private patrons have been clipped by legislation (https://www.clergyassoc.co.uk/content/docs/Patronage%20Guide.pdf) as that patrons often have only limited interests in their livings.
Advowsons were once valuable property, and were tradeable: there was a flourishing market. This mattered when incumbents had freeholds and valuable tithe (especially if the livings in question were rectories entitled to predial or greater tithes on grain) and glebe. Advowsons were used in the middle ages to reward royal officials in lieu of salaries, or by Oxbridge colleges (and by the Charterhouse, Eton and Winchester) as de facto pension funds for college fellows (since fellows could not marry and if they wanted a regular income in a married state they would need to pitch for a college living). They were also used by landowners to favour clients or relations.
So-called donative advowsons (which were abolished in 1898) made the incumbent effectively answerable to the patron, which was a major problem for the bench. Some bishops also resented the fact that their patronage was so limited that they could not much influence appointments within their own dioceses: Henrician sees like Oxford or Peterborough could count their entitlement to presentations on the fingers of one hand (Oxford only increased its patronage, chiefly around Banbury and Cropredy, when Lincoln relinquished its ancient rights, and Gloucester when York lost its peculiar jurisdiction of Churchdown and abandoned the advowsons it had enjoyed, chiefly in the Evenlode valley, since the time of Wulfstan).
All that importance has long gone. The number of livings in the gift of private lay patrons (once almost half of the total) has plummeted; the union of benefices and the liquidation or suspension of parishes has often subsumed private patrons into boards of patronage or made them one turn in many. Many lay patrons find them a chore. Oxbridge colleges did sell a number before the last war, since there were no longer the college fellows, nor even the graduate alumni, in orders to warrant having them; they have latterly not even bothered selling them because they are so worthless, and they are now little more than a plaything of college chaplains.
However, from the second half of the nineteenth century private ecclesiastical patrons (such as the Simeon or Martyrs Memorial trustees) started to purchase advowsons at discounts – as lay patrons were by that time anxious to sell – for the purpose of imposing their form of ecclesiastical partisanship upon the applicable living. Their chief virtue, or vice, is now as a conduit for partisanship at a local level. Personally, I think private patronage should now be scrapped.
This is excellent: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/83409/1/AdvowsonsandPrivatePatronage%20(3)%20(1).pdf.
This topic was covered here very well two or three years ago.
English Athena: Many thanks, as ever. This is very interesting. The Winchester saga revolves not only around the alleged personality flaws of the bishop but also the crucial constitutional question of the balance of power between bishop (and the bureaucracy) on the one hand, and the diocesan synod on the other hand. As has been noted, ‘Dakingate’ creates a potentially consequential precedent.
It would be very interesting to know more about the dynamics (especially the power dynamics of diocesan synods). I note that Stephen is proposing a blog about patronage, but I wonder if he could devote some of his remarks to illustrating how patronage is exercised through committees within diocesan bureaucracies and within diocesan synods, and what the consequences of this are, not only for those who are shunted on and off those committees, but also for the wider Church. Apologies if that is an awkward or difficult topic to address.
It seems to me that we will need to pay much more attention to diocesan synods in the future, and that there will be a ‘quadrilateral’ or nexus of power within each diocese comprising: (i) bishop and bureaucracy; (ii) DAC; (iii) DBF; and (iv) diocesan synod.
I have worked in several dioceses and I think it’s pretty much the same in all of them.
I agree with your analysis, Margaret, and unless this changes, and changes immediately, the Church of England is doomed. We most badly need the very people who are being suppressed and crowded out.
Sorry, this was a reply to Margaret’s first comment, but has appeared at the bottom of the page rather than directly under hers.
I wish I could be optimistic. But here in the Episcopal Church, my former bishop shrugged off allegations of perjury and other criminal conduct I made involving my former rector, Bob Malm. Four other bishops have taken similar approaches, and that includes the acting ecclesiastical authority for the diocese.
So I suspect little will change, as those in power simply don’t care.
Richard. I am using the word patronage in its general sense. It is the power to promote or demote. In a hierarchical church it is a very telling form of power as it gives a great deal of control to those who sit at the top table with the bishop. The need to please and flatter a patron was a common theme in Jane Austen. Those of us who are retired do not have to concern ourselves with this form of power as we are off the grid as it were. I am wring about this in my next post.
Hi Stephen, on the topic of patronage, when I was rector of three churches I had two separate patrons as two of the churches had one in common. The patron that was NOT linked to the church/diocese, was exceedingly supportive, sent a generous donation to the church every year, contributed to the appeals for building and repair, and wrote letter personally to me to support my ministry. He personally attended my interview a d then, at 94 retired to his country home. Last I heard, be was 101 and still writing letters!
The other patron, linked to the diocesan cathedral, I barely heard from, dis not support the churches, never attended and if we ever wrote, did not reply.
One famous occasion we’d recorded a cd of Christmas songs by a new. Hildrwns community choir I had formed in a church that had no children when I arrived. We posted a copy of the cd, as if it were an “outreach success story” to the patrons, bishop and, on a whim, to the archbishop of Canterbury. Within a week the lay patron had replied with a very encouraging letter address to me and the children, the bishop a little later, the archbishop (most likely hsonsexretary, but we’ll forgive him that) wrote again addressing the children and me to encourage the choir. I had to call the patron to ask if they were going to acknowledge it at least as I was hoping to share reactions with the children at the upcoming end of term award ceremony we were planning. The secretary took my message but had nonide what I was calling about (having delivered the cd by hand to their offices I knew they had received it). When a reply eventually came weeks later, it was a brief email to say they were very busy, hadn’t had time to listen to it and wishes us well.
In my experience, the blocking of candidates for promotion happens not at a patronage level, but with the archdeacons and senior staff prior to any contact with patrons. Having been present at a shortlisting meeting I have witnessed (and was later horrified when it dawned on me what had actually happened) when an archdeacon manipulated the shortlisting panel to ignore some candidates. As the majority of that oa el were lay, who respect the position of the archdeacon, none of them argued if, and one actually said that he (the archdeacon) must have reasons for not wanting a certain candidate even though the rest of the panel wanted to interview her.
From my limited experience, the issue is less with patrons (who may themselves be businesspeople who take a different view of interview and promotion processes) and more to do with diocesan structures afraid of change, of appojnting candidates which may being diversity orna different view, or of appointing candidates who may be known for speaking up.
The issue (your experience may differ) is less patronage and more “boys club”
That is appalling, but I am glad that you had a good, indeed excellent, experience with one of your patrons. These days capitular bodies often care relatively little for their patronage, probably because advowsons are no longer a source of income, and they get their funding from the Commissioners.
In his Raleigh lecture to the British Academy (1943), ‘Diocesan Organization in the Middle Ages: Archdeacons and Rural Deans’, the great A. Hamilton Thompson remarked:
‘The archdeacon’s chances of salvation were proverbially bad. A correspondent of John of Salisbury complained to him that to the race of men who were reckoned under the name of archdeacons in the Church of God the way of salvation was wholly barred: they love bribes, the followed after rewards, were quick to do wrongfully, rejoiced in false accusations, the sins of the people were the meat and drink on which they lived by robbery, so that no host was safe from his guest.’ (Proceedings of the British Academy, 1943, at 153).
Thompson then describes centuries of invective against archdeacons, from Peter of Blois and William Langland, to Anthony Trollope, Sabine Baring-Gould and Hugh Walpole.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.