WEDNESDAY'S NEWS

Standing Committee report covers many aspects of Church life
(from Elaine Whitehouse, Communications Dept, RCB)

The Standing Committee of the General Synod reported this year on a wide variety of topics covering many aspects of the life of the Church of Ireland, encompassing the work of bodies including the Bishops’ Appeal Advisory Committee, the Priorities Fund and the Central Communications Board.

Proposing the Standing Committee’s 2003 report, Mr Wilfred Baker of the Diocese of Cork highlighted two issues of general concern in relation to the Committee’s work – first, its relationship with the members of the Church in the parishes. Mr Baker reminded the Synod that the Church of Ireland “exists in the parishes, on the ground, with the ordinary parishioners” and challenged the Church’s central bodies to be mindful of this fact in all their dealings in order to remain relevant.

Second, Mr Baker addressed the issue of the Standing Committee’s position as a leadership body representing the Church. He felt that when considering current political issues “diversity of opinion, and its consequences, [had] to be accepted” and it was not appropriate to produce definitive statements setting out the opinion of the Church of Ireland. In this context Mr Baker welcomed the first report of the newly established Church in Society Committee, which had tackled issues including the Nice Treaty referendum and the war in Iraq by issuing a “comprehensive statement setting out the issues”.

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In addition to its permanent sub-committees the Standing Committee oversees the work of several ad hoc bodies set up to undertake particular projects. These include the Sectarianism Education Committee, which brought to this year’s Synod its newly published Scoping Study on attitudes to and experiences of sectarianism in the Church of Ireland, and the Publication of Prayer Book Advisory Committee, which reported on progress towards the publication of the Church of Ireland’s new Book of Common Prayer. Another working group formed last year to look at ways for the Church to respond to the needs of disabled people brought its policy recommendations to the 2003 Synod via the Standing Committee.

The Standing Committee also reported that it had endorsed the recommendations of a fact-finding group established to investigate the funding of ordination training. The group recommended that the relevant bodies should explore the various possibilities of increased personal grants to ordinands, non-residential components of ordination training, joint use of the facilities of the Church of Ireland College of Education and either maximising or realising the financial potential of the present Theological College site.

The Rev Canon George Davison, seconding the report, highlighted several issues currently exercising the Standing Committee’s working groups, including the ongoing review on both sides of the border of marriage law, a process with the potential to affect the way in which marriage is conducted in the Church of Ireland. The group appointed last year had, said Canon Davison, been able to “make representations to government in both jurisdictions and ensure that the views of our church are known at a stage when the legislation is being drafted”.

Canon Davison also referred to the “thorny subject” of synodical reform, addressed again this year by a group set up in 2001 following the failure of a proposed reform bill, and told Synod members that the issue of reform was one which would have to be addressed in the coming years.

Finally, drawing the Synod’s attention to the “inspiring” and “practical” recommendations of the working group on environmental issues set up following the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, Canon Davison told members that these were ways in which the Church could offer “leadership which is Christian, biblical and relevant to the world which we all inhabit”.

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