It is a sorry situation when church leadership in three parts of the United Kingdom is being challenged and called into question at precisely the same moment.  To misquote Oscar Wilde ‘it is one thing to have church leadership challenged in one province, but to have three put under scrutiny at the same time is careless’.   The critical calling out of the Archbishop of Wales, the Archbishop of York and the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church at the same moment must be an unprecedented event.  It is also traumatising to the other members of those bodies under their oversight, especially those in positions of leadership themselves.

Readers of my blog will be familiar with the background to the current turmoil in Scotland, Wales and England involving church leadership.  The precise reasons for unhappiness need not be rehearsed here, as there are other places, e.g. Thinking Anglicans, where the facts, such as we have, are explored.   There is also nothing to be gained by joining in a blame game.  Insofar as this is necessary, it has already been done by others with a greater grasp of all the facts than I have.  What I do wish to consider here is to try and imagine what it must be like to be one of the church leaders under fire and having, not only their decision-making questioned, but also their integrity.

Exposure to criticism is one of the costs of occupying a position of high office in any walk of life.  The job of CEO of a business leads one open to massive scrutiny, but the rewards in terms of salary and pension rights can be eye-wateringly huge.  One of the ways that pressure and stress are managed in high-flying secular jobs is through the fact that executive positions seem relatively secure.  Even if the company you are in charge of loses money and your resignation from this company is demanded, it seldom seems to prevent you, the leader, from successfully moving to head up another company.  A senior member of the clergy is in a much more fragile situation.  The ‘tied cottage’ method of employment means that the threat of losing or leaving a post represents a greater threat to well-being and welfare.  A clergy person, forced for whatever a reason to depart from a post, will typically have no property, no savings and no immediate prospect of obtaining new employment.  New opportunities for retraining get increasingly challenging and difficult, especially after the age of 50.   It is also not easy getting on the short lists for an incumbency position after the age of 58/59.  In short, it is highly risky treading the path of a clerical maverick.  The possibility of ending up homeless, impoverished and alone is just too great.

Taking risks in one’s style for practising leadership in today’s church is thus not to be recommended.   Making the wrong decision can seriously rebound and the harms that can descend on the clergy leaders and their families are possibly catastrophic.  Recycling senior clergy, even with decades of practical experience behind them, is not easy either.  Some senior clergy successfully move ‘down’ from cathedral canon or dean to incumbent status and seem to thrive.  This option is not given to very senior clergy who have reached the status of bishop.  Such clergy have reached a point in the trajectory of promotion where ‘demotion’ does not seem to happen.  Some defensive cord is wrapped around them, and the only viable option for a bishop who fails badly in the complex task of leadership is retirement.  One such episcopal departure covered by Surviving Church was enormously complex and cost the Church a great deal of money to resolve.

This consideration of even the possibility of career collapse among the clergy is a prelude to the thought that the clerical profession carries with it considerable pressure and stress.  My thoughts about the three leaders of the branches of the Anglican Church that we have mentioned as being currently under pressure, is to consider the stress they have been and are under.  Calls for them to resign, whether deserved on not, must be hard to bear.  Whatever their failings, they are human beings having to deal with opprobrium, and this must directly attack their quality of life.  No one becomes ordained with the expectation of having to face levels of stress that could cause Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  For leaders to know that there are people who want to attack and put pressure on them, is a hard burden to carry.  Having to face the hostility of individuals who hate your position on the LGBT issue, or the ministry of women is also very debilitating, spiritually and physically.  There cannot be many clergy who have not felt something in the way of political or personal opposition which has been the cause of unhappiness and stress.  Such episodes, especially for bishops, must have the tendency to spill over into family life.  The question that immediately comes into one’s mind is this:  Why would anyone accept the perceived gratification of high office in the church in return for PTSD levels of stress? Another way of asking the same question is to wonder whether we are reaching the point where candidates of ability routinely turn down senior posts for fear that their mental health might be compromised, if not destroyed. 

In last week’s Church Times there appeared a half page advertisement for the post of Dean of Bangor Cathedral.  The number of suitable candidates is first restricted by the requirement to speak and write Welsh.  The numbers who can cross this first hurdle and then feel able to offer themselves for consideration to be a church leader in this part of Wales will be tiny.   It will shrink further, possibly to zero, when the candidates acquaint themselves with the current crises at Bangor.  Candidates have to be prepared to negotiate an extremely tense and volatile set of issues related to finance, safeguarding and personal relationships.  Does the Archbishop of Wales really expect to find someone who is prepared to handle all the issues when so much has yet to be resolved in the Cathedral and Diocese? It requires super-human qualities that surely would be already manifest in one of the Welsh speaking clergy of the province, if such abilities in one person existed.

The gloomy point I am arriving at is to suggest that senior posts in the Church are becoming so complex and stressful that there may soon be insufficient people with the skills, calibre and mental stamina able to do them well enough to allow the Church to function well.   Looking at the impossible list of requirements for the next Archbishop of Canterbury, one wonders if a person with the right qualities and abilities actually exists.  One suspects that some who might be qualified to do major sections of the A/C’s tasks may have already withdrawn their names in a desire to escape the crushing responsibilities of the post.   We are still processing the news of a candidate for the Bishopric of Durham pulling out of the race at quite a late stage.  Perhaps the word race suggests a completely inappropriate image.    You can only have a race if there are several runners or riders ready to compete.  At Durham, Canterbury and in Wales those who operate behind the scenes collecting competitors, seem to be having a hard task getting the candidates to enter starters orders.

 A recent article on the net about the lot of clergy, addressed the issue of burnout.  Certainly, something has to happen if this problem of stress and burnout trauma is not to destroy the energy and vitality of those who lead and work for the Church.  One or both of two things must happen.  Either a great deal of thought and planning must be given to making the clerical task doable, by offering much more in terms of support, training and proper R & R.  The second thing is that the senior clergy should never be put in the position of having to manage a situation where they do not have relevant skills and competence.  The failures in church safeguarding have come about partly as the result of an institutional hubris which seemed to be saying that anyone can do the work with minimal skills and training.  Being out of one’s depth should never be a cause of shame, but a sign of the right kind of humility.   ‘I cannot do this, please help me’ should indicate a Church where giving and receiving are part of the routine fabric of its life.  Such a Church is one worth belonging to – a place where hardships and struggle are alleviated by sharing, as well as glimpses of joy in service.