THE Living in Love and Faith (LLF) process will come to an “imperfect” and “untidy” end in February, the House of Bishops has said. It means that the Bishops will not be proposing the introduction of stand-alone services of blessing for same-sex couples, or removing the ban on clergy entering same-sex civil marriages, at the forthcoming meeting of the General Synod.
In a statement issued on Wednesday afternoon, the Bishops acknowledged that their decisions will be “the cause of profound anguish to many LGBTQI+ people and their allies”, and that it “leaves some important questions unresolved”.
The statement confirms decisions taken by the House of Bishops in October, to subject stand-alone services of blessing for same-sex couples and the reconsideration of rules that bar the clergy from entering into same-sex marriage to further synodical processes (News, 17 October).
After heavy criticism (News 24 October and 30 October) and lobbying (News, 12 December and 19/26 December), from both sides of the debate, the Bishops met again in December, when they opted to defer the final decision until their meeting on Wednesday of this week (News, 19/26 December).
A working group will now consider how legislative steps on clergy same-sex marriage and stand-alone services could be taken forward, and consult on what “pastoral episcopal provision” might be appropriate if any further changes are proposed. This new group will, the statement says, report to General Synod by November 2028.
The statement was put to a vote of the bishops present at Wednesday’s meeting, and carried 35-1, with four recorded abstentions. No details of how individual bishops voted have been released.
The Bishops begin their statement with an acknowledgment of the “pain and sensitivities” about the issues in question, and later contains an apology to “all who have been harmed by shortcoming in our leadership”.
“We are acutely aware that, over the course of the past three years, hopes have repeatedly been raised and dashed, and anger has mounted at the perceived disregard for due process. We are aware that, as a result, many LGBTQI+ people feel less welcome, not more so, in our churches. This is a cause for profound sorrow,” the statement says.
None the less, the Bishops write that they “dare to hope” that the LLF process will leave “a legacy of greater inclusion of LGBTQI+ people” in the Church
of England and “deeper understanding of the theological issues and greater honesty about, and tolerance of, individual differences”.
“We believe we have fulfilled, albeit imperfectly, the February 2023 General Synod motion as best we can given the range of views across the Church of England,” the Bishops conclude.
The Bishops acknowledge a range of views within their ranks on clergy same-sex marriage, but allowing some bishops to sponsor ordinands in such marriages would introduce “an unmanageable level of complexity to our shared discernment and formation processes”.
The statement also says that there was a “high degree of consensus” among the Bishops to require stand-alone services of blessing for same-sex couples to be approved by two-third majorities in each of the three Houses of the Synod — a bar that observers consider to be unreachable.
Previously, the Synod had voted, by a narrow majority, to trial stand-alone services (News, 17 November 2023), but no such trial ever took place.
SEVERAL bishops released short statements of their own via Church House, Westminster, on Wednesday. The Archbishop of York said: “Living in Love and Faith was never meant to be a contest with winners and losers yet, because it touches upon such profound theological convictions and personal lived experience, many have felt it to be this way and many have been hurt and confused.”
His prayer, he said, was that “we can come together as those whose profound disagreement on some things is outweighed by our profound love for God and for each other on so many things”.
The Bishop of Winchester, the Rt Revd Philip Mounstephen, said that he was sorry for the “pain and some anger” that LLF had caused, but that it concluded with “commitment to due and proper process”: “We are — and we need to be — a properly ordered Church.”
The Bishop of Chelmsford, Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani, who has been outspoken in her support for the introduction of stand-alone services, said that she “profoundly” regretted the point that the Bishops had reached.
“I know it will feel to some that the Church has gone backwards in recent years, not forward. At the same time, I want to recognise that some progress has been made in that prayers of blessing for same-sex couples in committed relationships have been commended for use in public worship for the first time,” she said, promising to “advocate for more progress”.
“I urge us all to be gentle and kind towards one another, refusing to judge each other, uniting in our common purpose to love God and neighbour and sharing the good news of Jesus Christ in word and action,” she said.
The Bishop of Oxford, Dr Steven Croft, said that the Church “still has some distance to travel on this journey in the coming years”.
In 2022, Dr Croft expressed his support for the introduction of same-sex marriage in the Church of England. Wednesday’s statement describes this possibility as not having “sufficient consensus”, but suggests that “our common discernment on these questions will continue in the coming years”.
The Bishop of Blackburn, the Rt Revd Philip North, said that “the House of Bishops has agreed that we want to avoid fragmentation and travel together as one Body for the sake of our mission to the nation. This means that when we are making big decisions about what we believe, we need to use General Synod’s established processes to discern God’s will.”
He continued: “For some, we have not gone far enough; for others, we have already gone too far. My prayer is that we can stay together for the sake of the people we are called to serve.”
