THURSDAY'S NEWS

Bills - Third Reading

Liturgical Bills No 1,2,3,4,5,6,8

Passed

Liturgical Bill 9

Passed with amendment to last sentence of paragraph 2 'all who are' replaces 'everyone who is' in order to bring grammatical order to the sentence.

Liturgical Bill 7

Withdrawn

Bill 10

Amendment to Chapters I, VIII, X of the Constitution
Passed

The frustration of the synodical system

On Thursday, 16th May, the third reading of the Liturgical Bills were received and passed. All were passed either unanimously or with large majorities. The Bills dealt largely with the marriage and funeral liturgy in both traditional and contemporary language. The other Bills dealt with Sentences of Scripture and the Christian Initiation material in both traditional and contemporary form.

An amendment was proposed to Bill No 5 (The Funeral Services in contemporary language). The difficulties which the Synod faced in dealing with this amendment demonstrated the complexity of the synodical system at times. By an earlier amendment a prayer for use in the event of miscarriage or stillbirth was introduced. Canon Barry Dodds sought to make a minor change to the wording of the prayer. The difficulties which arose because of copyright was brought home to the General Synodand the care that has to be taken by those who compile liturgical material. As the prayer had been one which was used in part of the Church of England liturgy of Common Worship by permission from another source, the worthwhile alteration could not be made. The situation was relieved somewhat by the proposer of the amendment taking the advise of Synod to submit a further amendment to the 'Tidy-up' next year on the same subject.

The checks and balances of the parliamentary system can both be a blessing and a great frustration in the way decisions are made at General Synod. The system protects the Church from over hasty decisions, but it can cause great frustration to members who find the procedure very hard to grasp. It is to the credit of the Liturgical Advisory Committee that so much material made its way through Synod this year with both relative ease and speed.

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CIYD Appointment

The Rt Rev Richard Henderson, Bishop of Tuam announced the appointment of Mr David Brown to the Church of Ireland Youth Department.  Mr Brown previously worked with the Diocese of Canterbury.  He will take up his post in late summer.

(The following reports are courtesy of Rev Gregg Ryan for the Church Times)

Finance "killed Church Stewardship organisation"

The Representative Church Body of the Church of Ireland was accused of 'cherry-picking' a report which resulted in closing down the Church's stewardship office on purely financial grounds.

The office based in Belfast was closed following recommendations on the whole issue by Mr, John Truscott of the C of E.

Archdeacon Gregor McCamley (Down) said the decision to close was purely on economic grounds. "It was not viable, it needed £65,000 per annum. I believe that the Church of Ireland got very good value indeed for its investment in Stewardship over the past 40 years." 

He said stewardship was not just about finance, but about the Church's mission to itself. "This raises the question, should it be judged in terms of economic viability? The question asked by the Representative Church Body was can we afford Stewardship? The question should have been, can we afford not to have Stewardship. Have we still not learned the lesson that the priority of the Church of Ireland is spiritual, not material?"

"The Christian Stewardship Central Committee broadly accepted the Truscott Report as a whole. We did not cherry pick but unfortunately, the Representative Church Body seems to have done just that. They are happy to close the organisation because it needs an extra £15,000 a year totalling £65,000, while Truscott feels a minimum of £100,000 necessary if we are to take Stewardship seriously. Not only is the Church of Ireland not spending £100,000 on Stewardship, it is spending nothing now. The mission of the church to itself does not exist."

Mr. Robert Sherwood, Chief Officer of the RCB, said it was not a decision taken lightly, but in line with a much broader brief drawn up with the agreement of the Stewardship Organisation itself and the brief of Truscott was much wider than that outlined by Archdeacon McCamley. Questions posed included the relevance of the current Stewardship Organisation to the Church in today's environment and the place of fundraising alongside ministry and outreach.

"We should not only celebrate the achievements of the Stewardship Organisation, but we should also be looking seriously at what will replace it.

Retiring Archbishop of Dublin Dr. Walton Empey said there was sometimes an impression abroad that the RCB made such decisions lightly without examining closely the issues involved.

"It has always been my experience that every decision arrived at is as a result of the most careful examination of the information before them, and that they have always worked with the best interests of the Church as a whole in mind," he said.

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Call for Eucharistic lay-presidency

The Church of Ireland should reconsider its opposition to lay presidency at the Eucharist, a prominent member of General Synod said. Mr. Dermot O'Callaghan (Down) said that in the looming crisis predicted in the Report of the Commission on Ministry some of the alternatives were not being properly examined.

These included Lay Presidency. He said that the forthcoming Summit on Ministry due to take place in September next should re-evaluate the position of Cranmer and Hanson on the issue as well as the reasoning which has led to lay presidency in at least one Province of the Anglican Communion.

Canon Adrian Empey, Principal of the C of I Theological College, told synod that two fifths of those in training for the ordained ministry in the Church of Ireland belong to the essential NSM category.

"If this ministry disappeared tomorrow, our diocesan structures would rapidly grind to a halt," he said. 

Ten years ago, auxiliary priests were basically seen as filling the liturgical function of lay readers with the added bonus of being able to celebrate the Eucharist.

"Today they are an integral part of the diocesan system. Auxiliary clergy find themselves in charge of parishes during increasingly extended vacancies, fulfilling most if not all of the functions of stipendiary clergy. In the light of this seismic shift, we must adjust our training programmes to equip them fully for increased responsibilities."

Dr. Empey, who is a brother of the retiring Archbishop of Dublin, said the training budget for 22 auxiliary ordinands was hopelessly inadequate for the task ahead.

"It is the vast sum of € 6350 for the year ending June 2002. That's the cost of a second-hand Lada, slightly above banger classification. Believe me, Your Grace, I know about such things! Members of synod, the time to get real was yesterday," he said.

Chairman of the Ministry Commission, Dr. Richard Clarke, Bishop of Meath & Kildare said across the dioceses the traditional model of 'parish' is under considerable strain and in some places has virtually collapsed due to a number of factors including changes in permanent settlement of population due to increased mobility and also in the expectations of ordained ministry itself.

Much is expected of the Summit, he said. "The synod should realise now that if this summit is not to join the myriad of conferences and meetings which have pointed to brave new worlds which have then never materialised, then the synod itself must be ready for courage. Too often we have been courageous and adventurous until the time for action has come. This time let us realise that if we do not have courage, we have failed God and the future generations of the Church of Ireland."

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