Church
Watch
Clergy Discipline
by Ian Stubbs
This brief summary was prepared by the author for a “Sea of Faith in
the Churches” group in February, 2000. Two updates appear at the end.
The
Church of England is in the process of revising its procedures on
professional misconduct and ecclesiastical discipline. This was the
recommendation in a report by the Legal Aid Commission, The
Ecclesiastical Legal Aid System.
Under the present disciplinary arrangements (Ecclesiastical
Jurisdiction Measure 1963), cases to do with morality, unbecoming
conduct and neglect of duty are dealt with in the first instance by the
Consistory Court (the only court at diocesan level). A few cases only
since 1963 have reached trial in this court.
In respect of cases to do with doctrine, ritual and ceremonial, a new
Court of Ecclesiastical Cases Reserved has been established covering the
whole Church of England. This requires a court with two high court
judges and three diocesan bishops with appeal to three Lords of Appeal
and two bishops in the House of Lords. It has not been used.
There are 44 other unofficial disciplinary systems that are ad hoc
and liable to modification without notice or consultation. Anthony
Freeman was subject to one such in the Diocese of Chichester.
Recommendations were brought to the General Synod in November 1996 in
a Report, Under Authority. This report made a number of key
assumptions, namely:
·
Clergy should be treated differently from and more
rigorously than the rest of the believing community.
·
Those in Holy Orders accept an institutional
responsibility (roles essential to the church’s life); a teaching
responsibility (to instruct, clarify and explain Scripture and belief);
a representative responsibility (to stand for and speak on behalf of
church); responsibility to be an example – a demonstration of godly
living; and a responsibility of confidentiality
·
The Church should determine and expect high standards of
clergy in the performance of their allocated duties; the adherence to
the Faith as the Church understands it; their style of life and conduct;
and the highest professional standards in situations of vulnerability
·
Where people fall short they may be forgiven but the
viability of their continuing in office has to be addressed.
·
Clergy also have to be protected from frivolous, spiteful
or malicious accusations.
·
The burden of proof is on the complainant and must be
established beyond reasonable doubt.
·
Belief is central in a Christian church.
·
The Church of England is founded on the teachings of
Scriptures, the ancient creeds & historic formularies
·
Clergy make clear and consistent reiteration of the
essentials of the faith.
·
The Church of England represents a breadth of theological
approach – a hard central core & a fuzzier circumference.
·
Breadth of doctrinal expression cannot include denial of
the central core if the distinctiveness of the community of faith is to
be maintained.
·
Some doctrinal positions are inconsistent with being an
authorised guardian or teacher of the church.
These were approved with the exception of a recommendation regarding
"teaching, preaching, publishing or professing doctrine or belief
incompatible with that of the Church of England as expressed within its
formularies". An amendment was passed to leave these matters to the
present arrangements. On a show of hands the voting was 185:168 and
following a division into houses, by 222:208.
An Implementation Group was set up, chaired by Alan Hawker,
Archdeacon of Swindon.
The Group presented a draft Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction (Discipline)
measure and a draft Amending Canon No 24 to General Synod in July, 1999.
It also expressed the view that the existing (1963) measures for dealing
with incompatible doctrine or belief are not satisfactory and should be
brought into line with the new proposed arrangements.
The House of Bishops agreed with this but advised that doctrine and
belief should be left out of the present legislative process and that
their House would appoint a group to examine how offences of a doctrinal
nature could be dealt with under the new arrangements. The bishops would
bring a report in due course but in the meantime the passage of the
present legislation on other matters of clergy professional and personal
conduct would not be hindered.
A draft Amending Canon No 24 to the main Measure and to the Amending
Canon was scheduled for discussion by the General Synod during the
February 2000 sessions. This proposed a new title The Clergy
Discipline Measure.
The new proposals can be thought of as a move towards more modern
industrial tribunals. The proposal is that the new disciplinary courts
will be known as the Bishop’s Disciplinary Tribunal. They are intended
to be transparent, simpler, more easily understood and fairer.
A single procedure ensuring due process would be applied in all
dioceses, with the normal standard of proof being a "balance of
probabilities" as in other civil proceedings.
The bishop would have a range of five options for proceeding with a
complaint: rejection of the complaint, a warning on the record, a
conciliation procedure, imposition of a penalty by mutual consent, or
formal investigation by a tribunal.
Possible penalties could include deposition from holy orders,
prohibition from exercising any functions, removal from office,
resignation by mutual consent, revocation of license, injunction,
censure or conditional discharge. The procedures would apply to all
clergy, including bishops and archbishops, and including both freehold
and licensed clergy.
Other clauses define the procedures for entering and removing names
on the Archbishops’ Caution List (although the list itself remains
confidential), and specifically forbid proceedings against clergy for
their secular or political opinions.
A draft Code of Practice was also prepared, although adherence to it
will not be mandatory. Notwithstanding the general exclusion of
doctrinal matters, the draft Code of Practice contained the following
relevant text:
Doctrinal Belief
The
Church of England is a credal church. Without the potential of
discipline for doctrinal irregularities, this would not be possible. The
Declaration of Assent relates to this, and commits all clergy to a
standard of doctrinal conformity.
This
will always be a sensitive area, for the Church of England is a broad
church, encourages theological exploration and research (which at times
implies the temporary expression of unorthodox views in the pursuit of
understanding truth) and is permanently involved in the hermeneutical
debate of applying timeless truth to the contemporary context.
The
question that has to be resolved is what constitutes illegitimate
diversity. Based upon the Canberra Statement, recent ecumenical
agreements (Porvoo, Meissen, Fetter Lane) allow for a measure of
accepted diversity.
Discipline
in this area should be rare and exceptional. But there must be, by
definition, boundaries of permissibility (e.g. atheism, denial of the
doctrine of the Trinity or the doctrine of the Incarnation would be
beyond the boundary.)
A study group to
examine questions of doctrine, ritual and ceremonial was then
established under the chairmanship of Mark Santer, Bishop of Birmingham,
which advertised for comment and submission.
Update 2002
In November 2000, the Synod gave final approval to the Clergy
Discipline Measure (which by then excluded cases on doctrine, ritual and
ceremonial) by an overwhelming majority. However, the new measures must
be approved by Parliament before they can come into effect. This has not
yet happened.
The Clergy Discipline (Doctrine) Group is now chaired by the Bishop
of Chester, the Rt Rev Peter Forster, and has not submitted a report. The
Telegraph reported on 20 July 2002 that conservatives and liberals
in the group were deadlocked over what constituted an offence.
Related to the question of clergy discipline are questions concerning
the rights of clergy as employees, which has received attention from the
Department of Trade and Industry during the past year. Clergy have
traditionally been regarded as "called by God" rather than
employed by a terrestrial institution, and thus did not have access to
the protections afforded by secular employment law.
The DTI closed its consultation on 11 December 2002. On the same day,
the Archbishop’s Council acknowledged the need to change the
employment status of clergy, and announced that they would initiate an
internal review of the question. They asked that the Government take no
further action on the matter until the internal review had been
completed. In responding to this announcement, the third-party-sector
union Amicus welcomed the admission that the current status of clergy
needs to be changed, but expressed concern that the internal study would
be used as a way of further delaying progress.
Update July 2004
The report of the Clergy Discipline (Doctrine) group came before
Synod in 2004 and was narrowly rejected.
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