We have a Pope!

So we've ended up with a 30-1 outsider apparently. Personally, I was hoping for a long conclave (at least a couple of weeks), which would have shown the watching world that the cardinals were taking the problems facing the Roman Catholic Church seriously. For, like it or not, the fortunes of all Christianity are bound up with the way that things happen for Roman Catholicism. There are simply more of them than of anything else, and so how they behave and the impression they give of Christianity makes a difference. If Rome looks immoral and out of touch, that impression gets transferred to other Christians, even if in a subliminal way.

This is certainly true for those churches like the Church of England which have bishops and liturgy  How much does "the man on the Clapham omnibus" distinguish different Christian groups? Not much I suspect. This was brought home to me last Friday, by a man on the radio talking about the origins of Mothers' Day: "I'm no expert, but I believe it comes from religion," he said. Christianity is lumped with all religions into the category of "weird stuff that nobody serious actually believes."

But if we didn't get a Pope elected after a long drawn out conclave, at least we got a surprise. When the name was announced the crowd outside stayed silent (see at 1'16"). It was a "Who he?" moment, even from the people with an Argentine flag at the front of the crowd (and sign of the times, look at the ipads, too). By contrast, as I recall, the name of Joseph Ratzinger was greeted with an instant cheer (from 6'10").

Now there's no end of information online about this new guy (e.g. here, here, here, some of it good, some of it suggesting murky bits of complicity in Argentina's past), so no need for me to try and say too much. But there are a few things which I like about him, which seem to bode well for the future.

He chose not to wear a red cape, just a simple white cassock. He didn't clasp his hands together as if in a victory salute (unlike Benedict). He started his address with a simple "Brothers and sisters, good evening," and finished it "Good night, and sleep well." He asked  the people gathered in St Peter's Square to pray for and bless him, before he blessed them. There's a common touch here it seems. This is probably not surprising from a Jesuit, for the Jesuits were founded as a missionary order - precisely to reach out to people where they are, rather than imposing from above. Which, it seems to me, is just the kind of thing we need at the moment. But of course, the Jesuits combine this with scholarship - don't expect the common touch to mean dumbing down or wooly liberalism.

Most significant perhaps, is the choice of name: Francis. Of course St Francis has a reputation for humility and concern for the poor (and we'll see whether the new Pope gives new impetus to liberation theology). But he was also reform-minded. Just choosing a name borne by no previous Pope is reform already, and sends a pretty strong signal to the curia that things are going to change.

It remains to be seen whether the common touch can survive the behind-closed-doors battles which no doubt await, or whether, at 76, the new man has the energy to do what needs to be done. But the fact that the cardinals elected him after just five ballots (it took the front-runner Benedict four) suggests that he has a mandate from within the hierarchy to be something different from what went before.

Lat us all pray for Pope Francis. He'll need it.

Crisis in Rome?

The news that Cardinal Keith O'Brien is to resign from his position as Archbishop of St Andrew's and Edinburgh a little early, because of allegations of improper behaviour by him against priests of his diocese is a cause of great sadness - for all concerned. He denies the allegations, and says his resignation is only in order not to draw media attention away from the real business of choosing the next Pope.

That seems to me an honourable thing to do.The media (in this country at least - I wonder whether the rest of the world has taken much notice) would always remember that the next Pope was elected partly by a "tainted cardinal." That would hardly help anyone. Could one vote out of 115 really be the difference between a good Pope and a bad one?

Of course only time will tell whether the charges against Cardinal O'Brien are substantiated, though I suspect they are of a kind which it would be very difficult to prove in court, so we may never really find out. It's unclear what is actually alleged - "inappropriate approach/contact" and "unwanted  behaviour" could mean any number of things, though they imply something far less than outright sexual assault, for example. Whilst all have sinned and fallen short, clearly certain standards are expected of a bishop. The allegations perhaps have more to do with hypocrisy and abuse of power than sexual misdemeanors as such, and to that extent are very serious indeed when applied to a leading figure in the Church.

And herein lies the wider problem for the Roman Catholic Church, one which I hope will be addressed in the choosing of the next Pope. For a great deal of what has undermined the Church is to do with abuse of power. We might remember that it was abuse of power which led to the Reformation in the first place - the Protest was first and foremost against selling indulgences to pay for the rebuilding of St Peter's Basilica in Rome. In recent years, the scandal over child abuse by priests would not be half as bad if the institutional Church had not done so much, for so long, to try to cover these things up. Insult really has been added to injury, and abusers have been allowed to carry on abusing (and I'm aware that the Church of England has not been entirely without fault, as the situation in Chichester Diocese attests, for example).

To a modern Western mindset which is inclined to question all sources of authority, abuses of power are particularly damaging. Only if the source of authority comes well out of the questioning can it hope to have any credibility. And one of the questions must be "how is that authority being used?" The result of recent papacies has been to concentrate power in the Vatican. This not only means that there is likely to be a disconnect between the faithful on the front-line and those in charge (shades of the trenches in WW1 anyone?), it also means that blame rests where authority does. Failings in one diocese make the world-wide Church look bad. Popes who want total control need to accept total responsibility too. That hasn't usually happened.

So the crisis for the Roman Catholic Church must be over the approach the next Pope takes. Either assume full responsibility with the power, or decentralize the whole thing, move lots of decision-making away from the Vatican, and make it much more flexible and responsive. I know which I think should happen. I fear neither will.

But at least Cardinal O'Brien, in openly saying that priests might be allowed to marry, and in resigning quickly rather than thinking himself above criticism, has shown the kind of options which might restore the credibility of the Bishops of Rome. He's unlikely to be elected.

A new Archbishop, a new Pope

Well, it's been a long time since my last post, which goes to show that once you get out of the habit of doing something it's hard to get back into it. The pressure of work, with undergraduate interviews in early December, and then being off on holiday (when I therefore had much better things to do with my time) both got me out of the habit. And then I just didn't get back into it for quite a while.

Indeed, this post got started last week, on the day Justin Welby was confirmed as the new Archbishop of Canterbury. But I wasn't decided about what to say, and it got put off. But now Benedict XVI has announced his resignation and I feel I ought to get back into the game - though I'm sure the Holy Spirit didn't arrange the resignation purely for the purpose of prompting me to blog again.

So today is quite a momentous day - no Pope has resigned since 1415 (actually of course the momentous day will be February 28th when the resignation comes into effect since he might theoretically change his mind before then). And when Popes have resigned in the past (according to wikipedia) it has not been because of advanced age. It seems that Benedict has decided that he doesn't have the strength to lead the Roman Catholic Church because the pace of modern life is so fast, and the challenges so great, that the won't be able to do the job properly. In a sense it is an admission that the Church faces a crisis far more significant than previously faced by aged Popes. Not in the sense that child abuse scandals present a crisis - I think the crisis goes deeper than the wicked behaviour of a relatively small number of priests.

It seems to me that the challenge faced by the Roman Catholic Church, and also faced by the Church of England, is that we live in an age of rapid communication, much of which is mis-communication. This means that discussions which Christians have between themselves take place too quickly, and between too many people. There isn't the time for reflection there used to be. There isn't a control on who gets to join in. Which means that all too often people say and write things which they might regret later, and all too often things are said across cultural divides without proper cultural translation - leading not to fruitful reflection on the glory of God, but hurt and confusion and anger. Fast communication has tended to lead to arguments - about questions of gender and sexuality most noticeably in recent years.

Now I don't think that discussions of difficult topics are bad for the Church, and I don't think the Church should say to some people that they aren't allowed to have discussions, but I do think it's OK for the Church to try to exercise some kind of influence over the way that discussions are held, so that they tend to be constructive rather than destructive. Discussion is good insofar as it leads to the building up of the saints, but not otherwise.

One way for the Church to influence things is to try to keep a watchful eye over discussion between different cultural groupings, and to try to make sure the necessary translation is happening. This requires a nimble, light-handed approach if it isn't to become oppressive censorship (which is a bad thing). I have a suspicion that Justin Welby has some of the skills for this. I suspect Benedict XVI feels he lacked the energy for it. I hope his successor will be chosen with a view to doing it.

But both will need the support of the Churches they are trying to lead. This means in part being willing to accept a guiding hand here and there, and it means being willing to sit light to authority structures sometimes (because they tend to stifle real engagement with a discussion by deciding what the outcome should be in advance).

Most of all Justin Welby and the next Pope will need ours prayers as they try to work in extremely challenging times.

The statistics of representation

I promised in my last post to say something about the things which are going around the web which I think are unhelpful.

One is that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way General Synod operates. How can it be that it voted down something which was overwhelmingly approved by the Dioceses (42 to 44), and which has such significant support in the wider Church? Well the answer is that our representative system doesn't work the way that these questions presuppose.

Yes, they are skewed towards the pressure groups and factionalism that political processes formalize. But how could they not be so? How many Members of Parliament are not members of a pressure group or faction(/party)? And yes, General Synod is skewed towards those with time and resources to be able to attend meetings - but tell me which church council isn't!

Most important to remember, General Synod members are not elected simply to vote in accordance with the views of those who elected them. How are they supposed to know those views? From opinion polls? But how many polls are broken down on a Diocese by Diocese basis? How many include only regular church-goers? Perhaps from the letters they get then? And I'm sure many members do take full account of letters. But these will be not much more representative than the Synod members themselves: the same people who care enough about Church politics to write letters are those who put themselves forward for elections.

No, Synod, members are elected on the basis of having knowledge and experience of the Church, of the Bible, of theology, perhaps even for their known spiritual life. They are, in short, relatively expert in the kind of thing Synod discusses. How many people "in the pews" really understand what Synod was discussing? Or have taken time to familiarize themselves with the theological and biblical arguments on each side? Precious few, I would hazard to guess. And why should they, really? We have representatives to do that stuff for us. Again there is the parallel to MPs (consider how many MPs would vote for the restoration of the death sentence(very few) and what opinion polls tell us of the public's views).

And we should remember that the Diocesan Synods are generally somewhat less expert than General Synods (like local councils to Parliament). Moreover, if the Diocesan Synods had used the same system of 2/3rd majority in each of three houses it would have been passed in 33 of them, rather than 42 of 44. So 25% would have been against, a much larger minority than the debate tends to acknowledge.

Diocesan and General Synod votes cannot be directly compared, of course, because the memberships are different, and they are voting at different stages in a legislative process (so the psychology of members will be different accordingly).

There again, if a survey this year is to be believed, 31% of regular Anglican church-goers want to see women as bishops either never or when there is consensus with other churches. Now since 36% of the House of Laity voted against the Measure, compared to 23% of Clergy and only 6% of Bishops, it turns out that the Laity were more in line with the mind of the Church than the others. I don't suppose anyone is proposing to reform the Houses of Bishops or Clergy to bring them into line.

The Synodical system isn't perfect, and reform may be appropriate. But before we start to make changes, let's make sure we understand what we've got properly.

Women bishops - Same as it was before

Well, I have to admit to being shaken when I heard the result read out. Literally.

We knew all along it was a possibility, I'd actually predicted it to a couple of people, but actually knowing it had happened was a different thing.

I've given it a couple of days before blogging to let it sink in. And because there's been a huge amount written on the web about it. I said in advance of the vote that we need to look for what the Holy Spirit is doing in all this. I still think that, perhaps even more so - though that implies I wasn't sure before hand.

It seems to me though, that nothing very much has actually changed. The General Synod in particular, and the Church of England in general were discussing how to proceed towards having women as bishops last week; and discussing it on Tuesday; and we're still discussing it now.

Make no mistake - no one is really suggesting that there won't be women as bishops. We're not back to square one. It's just his very specific way of doing it that has been rejected. In a hundred years from now, Tuesday's vote will surely be not much more than a footnote in the pages of history.


But there are various things being said around the web which I think are unhelpful, and I want to respond to a couple of them - but I'll do it in separate posts, to keep tings neater and shorter here.

Women Bishops - Voting Today Part 2

Well, I've said what I think, and how I would vote.

However, when all is said and done, the only right thing is to pray. And not to pray for any particular outcome, as many seem to be doing. But to pray that God's will may be done, whatever that is. Let us pray that the Holy Spirit will work through General Synod today.

Indeed, we kind of have to trust that the Holy Spirit is involved, otherwise all the decisions to date are questionable, including that to ordain women as priests. Let's not even go there - that way madness lies!

And having prayed that the Holy Spirit will guide and inspire the Synod members, let's assume that prayer has been answered, whatever the result.

If it is "yes" that doesn't mean that the Holy Spirit approves of women bishops. Perhaps we are being led into a parting of the ways, and the "traditionalists" will thrive while the "progressives" fade.

If it is "no" that doesn't mean that the Holy Spirit disapproves of women bishops. Perhaps we are being led to work harder on the provision for "traditionalists." Perhaps we are being led to reject any provision at all.

Either way, more work will need to be done. Either way, the Holy Spirit will be taking us into a future whose shape we can only begin to grasp. Perhaps the will of the Holy Spirit is that the Church will become weaker before it can become stronger.

"Thy will be done."

Women Bishops - Voting today Part 1

Well, push has come to shove. The vote on women bishops is today.

No-one seems to be pretending they know which way it will go. Everyone thinks it's too close to call.

For what it's worth (nothing), I suspect the Measure will pass, if only because the waverers will have been influenced by the warnings of doom if it doesn't.

For what it's worth (less than nothing(?!)), if I was there and voting, I'd vote no. The clear view of the majority within the Church is that women should be bishops. That ought to be respected. But note that it is not, as some reports have it "an overwhelming majority." By definition if it were an overwhelming majority the minority would be overwhelmed - the vote would not be on a knife-edge. But pedantry aside, a recent set of surveys suggest that opposition runs at about 12-16%, but if you add in those undecided or thinking it's right to wait then you get higher figures: about 25-30%. Obviously we should be careful with statistics and surveys, but I wouldn't call that "overwhelming."

And for the minority opposed, is the provision in the Measure sufficient? Well, I happen to think it's stronger than most opponents allow, but I'm clearly in a minority on that one. And given that the point of having  a compromise at all is to help those opposed to stay in the Church, it has a crumbs from the table feel to it. At least the original Clause 5(1)c received a cautious welcome from opponents. Personally, I think a better compromise can be found. Lots of people, urging a yes vote, disagree. They may well be right. It certainly seems that the adversarial style of the debate surrounding the factions in Synod works against compromise.

Perhaps if the vote is "no," rather than looking to bring in a new measure at some point soon, we should be having  a debate about how Synod works - or, in this case perhaps, doesn't work.

But he thing which finally decided me that a "no" vote would be my choice, that the Measure is not fit for purpose, is reading this morning of one part of the Q&A session at Synod yesterday. There will be a Code of Practice governing how parishes which want to opt out of ordained women's ministry are to be treated. If a parish doesn't think the Code has been followed properly it has the right to take it to judicial review. Now, I can't really get behind the idea that a secular court should decide these things (1 Corinthians 6.1-7), but what really troubles me is that the Church might pay the legal costs of a bishop, but would definitely not pay the costs of a parish.

This is a huge imbalance of power. What parish could afford to go to judicial review? Almost certainly none. Is the Code therefore enforceable in practice rather than just in theory? Almost certainly not. And this huge imbalance of power is just the sort of thing feminists work against. This is surely a liberation issue. This is surely about opposing kyriarchy. Personally, I think we need something better. I think feminists should vote "no" - not because they oppose women as bishops or don't want to fight patriarchy, but because, far more fundamentally they oppose kyriarchy in all its forms. The Measure is not fit for purpose.