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From www.forwardinfaith.com FiF UK Forward in Faith and the Catholic Group in General Synod wholeheartedly agree with the Legislative Drafting Group that the Church of England now faces ‘some very serious decisions’, which ‘go to the heart of what sort of Church it wishes to be’. We are convinced that it is, in the words of the Report, ‘far better that those issues are faced calmly, honestly and prayerfully now than that the Synod should set off down a road which may, ultimately, fail to command sufficient consensus’.
It is for this reason that it is only fair to say, at the outset, that we reject the Simplest Statutory Approach outlined in paragraphs 53 – 78. We believe that such a course of action, which would signal the end of the open period of reception and the Church of England’s rejection of Resolution III.2 of the Lambeth Conference, 1998, is one which would without question fail to command any degree of consensus whatsoever.
We also believe that no discernible degree of consensus would attach itself to those variations of the Arrangements within Existing Structures option set out in paragraph 115 which rely for their force upon a Code of Practice (Variation one & Variation two). We remain unconvinced that a Code of Practice, however enforced, will be capable of maintaining the ‘degree of equilibrium’ which presently obtains.
We believe that consensus will only be achieved if arrangements are made which are acceptable to those for whom they are intended and which will, in the words of Professor McClean, ‘remain in perpetuity’ for as long as they are needed. We agree with the authors of the Report that such arrangements will need to be both ‘creative and innovative’ and we shall therefore now examine with care the remaining options before us in order to judge the extent to which each of them meets the Report’s criterion that we should be able to receive pastoral and sacramental care in a way that is consistent with our convictions (paragraph 138c).
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