Day 1
No Change to Rule on Synod Members’ Eligibility for Election
No Change to Rule on Synod Members’ Eligibility for Election
A Bill which proposed to remove the rule that allows for any member of the Church of Ireland to be elected to General Synod as a representative for any diocese was presented to Synod today (Friday May 12).
Currently, a lay person may be elected to General Synod to represent a diocese in which they are not a registered general vestry member of any parish therein. Similarly, a member of the clergy can be elected to General Synod to represent a diocese even if they do not reside in that diocese.
Bill No 3 sought to amend Chapter I of the Constitution on the grounds that it is appropriate that those elected to represent a certain diocese should be invested in that diocese through registered general vestry membership of a parish within the diocese or being licenced, in the case of clergy, in the diocese which they are elected to represent.
The Bill was proposed by Canon Gillian Wharton and seconded by Ken Gibson.
Proposing the Bill, Canon Wharton, spoke of the importance of maintaining the breadth and plurality of the voice of General Synod. She said that the Bill would ensure that those who are clergy would be licenced in the diocese for which they are elected and similarly lay people would be from the diocese they represent to ensure that the breadth of representation be maintained.
Speaking to the Bill Canon Dr Maurice Elliott said that he believed that the Bill was displaced and should be rejected as it closed down a useful flexibility. He said there was a danger that it closed down a breadth of the totality of the Synod and added that there was a need for acceptable flexibility for various reasons. He noted that there was no such statutory provision in civic elections. “Why remove something which is essentially inobtrusive?” he asked adding that acceptable flexibility for exceptional circumstances should not be removed.
The Bishop of Cork, the Right Revd Paul Colton, suggested that the proposed clause 6 of the Bill (which states that clergy must be licenced in the diocese for which they are elected) would rule out any Rector being a member of General Synod as beneficed clergy do not hold a licence.
Andrew Brannigan (Down and Dromore) said he had never heard this raised as an issue before and it was not a problem that needed to be solved. He said for most people it did not create a problem. But he said there were one or two cases where it might cause a problem. He said he liked the idea that each diocese could pick whoever it wants to represent it on General Synod and urged members of Synod to vote against it.
Ken Gibson said Synod represented need people to be anchored in the life of the Church and would do that best in the context of where they lived.
A vote on the Bill saw Synod members reject it.