It is hard to keep tabs on episcopal vacancies in the Church of England at present.  By my calculation there are nine diocesan episcopal posts that are vacant or to become vacant by the summer.  Two further diocesan posts are in temporary abeyance (Lincoln and Salisbury) while the current incumbents await the result of disciplinary enquiries that are being undertaken.  That would possibly bring the total number of diocesan vacancies to 11.  This total means that around 25% of the senior episcopal posts in England are currently in or about to enter a temporary vacancy.  Fortunately, for the smooth running of the Church of England, there are enough suffragan and retired bishops around to provide temporary cover so that episcopal leadership for all 42 dioceses is preserved for the foreseeable future.

The appointment of diocesan bishops in England is, by all accounts, a complex and painstaking operation.  There has always to be, before names are considered, a statement of needs prepared by the receiving diocese.  A group of carefully chosen and highly qualified individuals are brought together to form a Vacancy in See Committee. This group will meet and share their thoughts on those who are thought to be suitably qualified individuals.  Confidential lists of suitable candidates are already in existence and those who become diocesan bishops have probably been on such a list of potential nominees for some time.  The political sensitivities within the Church of England require the Committee to understand fully the importance of a cultural and theological fit.  A diocese such as Chichester (to be vacant in June ‘26) would expect to receive a leader with Anglo-Catholic leanings while the new Bishop of London will need to have skills able to operate sensitively across a wide range of church traditions.   This churchmanship match-up might once have been a major part of what was required for a successful diocesan bishop.  Now this aspect of a candidate probably takes its place alongside all the other pressing skills and abilities needed to cope with the chronic complexity of the role.  Against the background of a severe decline in finance and members in most dioceses, no candidate will be able to offer everything that might be desired from him or her. These expectations have become so numerous that I suspect every nominee will be seen not to achieve the ideal or even required level of excellence in some areas.  The candidate that is eventually chosen will probably have to be a compromise choice.  There are simply not enough experienced candidates to match all the expectations laid on them.  The Vacancy in See Committee do not have the opportunity to choose the ‘Archangel Gabriel candidate’.   Were such a person to exist, the whole process might be considerably less stressful.

I will have more to say about why the pool of candidates for diocesan bishops is not strong currently, but I think it is important to consider from the outside what might be the qualities needed for this post if we were able to design from scratch the ideal candidate.  The qualities I want to suggest as essential for a diocesan bishop can be summarised in three words. The bishop needs to operate well as pastor, leader and teacher.  This first quality that I mention here is the quality of an individual who knows how to care for others, especially the clergy of the diocese.  The clergy are entrusted to be pastors and to care for their parishioners on behalf of the bishop.  In my own ministry I can only remember two bishops who seemed to care and be genuinely interested in my own ministry and welfare.   This is not the time to go into further reminiscing on this point, but I would like to suggest that a bishop should know far more about the individual clergy under his/her charge than just as names in a file.   Fortunately, I have normally been able to find other clergy who would provide oversight and encouragement, but it was not something that came routinely from my bishops.  With the declining number of front-line clergy to care for, this role for bishops might reasonably be expected to come into greater focus. 

The second role of a bishop in a diocesan role is to provide leadership, especially in the form of inspiration and direction for the institution.  The bishop pastor is the one who guides the work and morale of individuals who work for the institution while the bishop leader fulfils a management role in equipping and inspiring the whole.  I would want my leader to have gifts of exceptional sensitivity and wisdom.  I want them to be the people who can guide and motivate committees so that the right decisions are taken.  A good chairperson, as I expect my bishop to be, will read the room with unerring accuracy so that the insights of all present will be heard and taken into account.  Above all, and true to the theme of this blog, I want my bishop to be supremely sensitised to the dynamics of power, including his/her own.

The final quality that I have chosen to emphasise (there are many others – no doubt) is that the bishop to be a teacher/theologian.  Sadly, this last capacity is becoming a rare quality.  Clergy who read books seem to be in minority and those who become bishops may not have this important ability to inspire a passion for godly leaning among clergy and laity.  My ideal bishop candidate will have this capacity to get people excited about God in terms of spirituality, study and prayer.  Needless to say, I have watched, with regret, the short-cuts in theological training that have been brought about for financial reasons.  Perhaps a new generation of bishops can inspire their clergy to give more time to study and the nurture of a mind that is constantly seeking new ways to understand more of the mystery of God.

To return to the appointing of nine (possibly more) men and women over the next 18 months to take episcopal roles of a highly complex and demanding nature, the Church of England authorities know they have a very difficult job.  Most, if not all, of the next generation of diocesan bishops will be suffragans already and so the pond from which to fish is finite in size.  One unsettling question, for which we have no answer, is whether the job of diocesan bishop has become so demanding, if not impossible, that a new generation of younger clergy will refuse to submit themselves to a post that they suspect will grind them down to the point of exhaustion and burn-out.   One ominous piece of information was shared with us about the difficulty of making senior appointments in the Church of England.  In the course of last year, the then leading candidate for the Bishop of Durham who had already gone through several stages in the appointment process, withdrew his/her name at quite a late stage.  The Church cannot easily survive the departure of such highly qualified candidates.  If ever the Church were to find itself in the desperate position of having to appoint candidates who are clearly not up to the job, the seeds of institutional collapse are at hand.  It is also a serious blow to clerical self-esteem and institutional morale when office holders at the level of diocesan bishop are required to step back and take paid leave.  We still have not as an institution recovered from the appalling reputational hit when a diocesan bishop was tried and sent to prison for his sexual crimes. 

One major area of concern which applies to bishops and clergy is whether they are up to coping with stress.  Every member of the clergy has some insight into severe stresses of managing personnel, finance and safeguarding that come their way.  The same stresses, much magnified, are faced by our bishops.   The present cohort of suffragans will know about the impossible demands and conflicts handed to those who preside over complete dioceses.  To take but one area of stress:  how does a diocesan bishop manage when he/she knows that a parish for which he/she has responsibility has a grossly inadequate incumbent in charge?  How does the bishop make a decision and decide whether to allow a toxic clergyperson to take charge of a church, when it is possible/probable that that this charge will be badly mismanaged?  Knowing where safeguarding bodies are buried must be a constant source of stress, even anguish.  While a suffragan remains a suffragan, there is always the diocesan to refer to and, hopefully, sort out the problem.  As a diocesan bishop the buck stops at the study door.  The damage caused by making the wrong decision really matters.  Peoples’ lives and wellbeing are affected.  No one with a conscience wants to be responsible to helping to destroy or damage the life of another or undermine an institution as precious as the Church of Christ.

I end this reflection about bishops in the C/E with questions.  The first is to ask whether the episcopal task is too onerous and stressful to be accomplished successfully today?  The second question is related to the first.  Given the new complexities that surround anyone who operates in a public role, demanding a range of skills probably not possessed by a single individual, is it fair to place anyone in this role without re-writing their terms of contract?  I don’t know the answer to these questions, but I believe that they need to be faced by clergy and lay people at every level of the Church.