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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Bishop of Newcastle
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Charles Read
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# 3963
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Posted
Don't know if this is the right / most appropriate board for episcopal announcements so if not, perhaps a kindly, learned and righteous host will relocate it...
new bishop
Two things seem to me to merit note (other than that this is IMHO a brilliant appointment):
1. she is the first diocesan bishop in the CofE who trained on a course rather than in a college
2. she had retired and has been summoned forth back into stipendiary ministry. Indeed, we said farewell at the July Synod and will now say hello (in Feb I imagine).
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"I am a sinful human being - why do you expect me to be consistent?" George Bebawi
"This is just unfocussed wittering." Ian McIntosh
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Amos
Shipmate
# 44
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Posted
Delighted by Christine Hardman's preferment. However she's not the first bishop, or even the first female bishop, to train on a course. The Rt Revd Dame Sarah Mullally, Bishop of Crediton, trained on SEITE.
ETA Oh wait--you said Diocesan. I've been thinking for years that Newcastle was suffragan to Durham. ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
[ 02. September 2015, 12:39: Message edited by: Amos ]
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At the end of the day we face our Maker alongside Jesus--ken
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Charles Read
Shipmate
# 3963
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Posted
This is true - the first bishop so trained was Robert Ladds. But she is the first diocesan ...
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"I am a sinful human being - why do you expect me to be consistent?" George Bebawi
"This is just unfocussed wittering." Ian McIntosh
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Amos
Shipmate
# 44
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Posted
I'm only 133 years behind the times then.
Mind you--the thought that it's not news for a suffragan bishop to be trained on a course, but remarkable when a diocesan is so trained shows up the Dobos-torte stratifications of clericalism in the CofE in startling relief.
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At the end of the day we face our Maker alongside Jesus--ken
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Charles Read
Shipmate
# 3963
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Charles Read:
This is true - the first bishop so trained was Robert Ladds. But she is the first diocesan ...
Ah! Cross post with your edit...
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"I am a sinful human being - why do you expect me to be consistent?" George Bebawi
"This is just unfocussed wittering." Ian McIntosh
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
This'll set the cat among the pigeons! Jesmond Parish Church* (spiritual home of Reform and The Christian Institute) are in her bailiwick.
They've been in 'impaired communion' with the Bishop of Newcastle since the early-mid 90s - drafting in non-Anglican communion bishops to do confirmations (and irregular ordinations). It'll be interesting to see what line Bp Hardman takes... ![[Two face]](graemlins/scot_twoface.gif)
*My old shack, before I saw the light.
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Charles Read
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# 3963
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Posted
She has experience of such from Southwark...
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"I am a sinful human being - why do you expect me to be consistent?" George Bebawi
"This is just unfocussed wittering." Ian McIntosh
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
So what did she do there? I think Bp Wharton was satisfied to just wait it out - the diocese was always going to be around longer than any individual cleric.
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Forward the New Republic
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*Leon*
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# 3377
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Posted
When she retired, a lot of people in Lewisham were disappointed that it seemed the women bishops vote hadn't come fast enough for her. It's very good to hear we were wrong.
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Adeodatus
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# 4992
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Posted
As someone who was ordained by her predecessor-but-one, the wonderful Alec Graham, I'd like to offer her every blessing. It's a lovely diocese, but not an easy one. The last two bishops managed things very skilfully and I hope bishop-to-be Christine will too. As a Northumbrian in exile I envy her move to God's Own Country.
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
Charles, is there any particular topic you'd like to see discussed so far as this appointment is concerned?
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
If Charles hasn't, one that occurs to me is the new Bishop's age- 64. There's been another sexagenarian appointment recently- Hereford (I think) and in a world where in many fields you're seen as finished as far as promotion goes at 55 or younger (e.g. look at the profile of the Labour leadership candidiates, except Corbyn) this is very welcome. Do others have a view on this? And if a rather parochially CofE question can be asked, is it time to reconsider compulsory retirement at 70- if the new Bishop turns out to be as good as everyone thinks she will be, isn't it a bit daft that she'll have to go in six years? What about e.g. retirement at 70 or ten years after your last appointment, whichever is the later?
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
If Charles hasn't, one that occurs to me is the new Bishop's age- 64. There's been another sexagenarian appointment recently- Hereford (I think) and in a world where in many fields you're seen as finished as far as promotion goes at 55 or younger (e.g. look at the profile of the Labour leadership candidiates, except Corbyn) this is very welcome. Do others have a view on this? And if a rather parochially CofE question can be asked, is it time to reconsider compulsory retirement at 70- if the new Bishop turns out to be as good as everyone thinks she will be, isn't it a bit daft that she'll have to go in six years? What about e.g. retirement at 70 or ten years after your last appointment, whichever is the later?
There's a line being spun over on Thinking Anglicans that this may be a placeholder appointment whilst the diocesan commission get on with the reabsorption of Newcastle into Durham....
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And is it true? For if it is....
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Charles Read
Shipmate
# 3963
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Posted
Yes, that would be a good topic - in fact two!
I originally mentioned Christine's appointment here for the sake of information and of course so people could pray for the diocese and for her as this is a Christian Website (TM) and not for the sake of gossip at all, oh no.
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"I am a sinful human being - why do you expect me to be consistent?" George Bebawi
"This is just unfocussed wittering." Ian McIntosh
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Welease Woderwick
Sister Incubus Nightmare
# 10424
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
...As a Northumbrian in exile I envy her move to God's Own Country.
Ahem!!
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Charles Read:
Don't know if this is the right / most appropriate board for episcopal announcements
No, I can confirm that it isn't, and that the kindly Purgatory hosts have agreed to take it, so hold tight while I transfer you over.
Cheers
Ariel
Heaven Host
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Oscar the Grouch
Adopted Cascadian
# 1916
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
is it time to reconsider compulsory retirement at 70- if the new Bishop turns out to be as good as everyone thinks she will be, isn't it a bit daft that she'll have to go in six years? What about e.g. retirement at 70 or ten years after your last appointment, whichever is the later?
The C of E's compulsory retirement age is just waiting for the first person to appeal against it. As soon as that happens, it will have to go. You simply can't discriminate in this way any more. You cannot force someone to retire if they don't want to and are capable of continuing.
What should happen (and will happen, I suspect) is that after 70, any clergy who want to continue in stipendiary ministry will have to under go a regular review to ensure that they are competent to continue.
Not many people will WANT to work on into their 70's, but I would have thought that Bishops would be the most likely to do so.
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Faradiu, dundeibáwa weyu lárigi weyu
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Albertus
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# 13356
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Posted
Well, yes, I did wonder about its legality. I don't know whether clergy being office-holders rather than employees makes any difference, or whether this is just the CofE chancing it as it sometimes does.
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
Two words: Eric. Kemp.
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
Fair point. Hence my 'ten years after last appointment'!
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Two words: Eric. Kemp.
Are you citing him as an example of how a person can still be a good bishop in his or her eighties, or as an example of a person who can go on too long and should have been compulsorily retired many years previously.
And either way, would a person's view on this be affected by what they think about 2+ dead horse issues?
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
Don't know what l'o thinks but I think of Kemp as someone who was extermely capable at one time but hung around for far too long. I had some dealings professionally with his office c1990, when he would have been, what, 75 or 76 and I got a distinct impression that some of his staff regarded him as someone who had become rather erratic and hard to keep tabs on. (Of course some people might think this is a good thing!)And at that point he still had, what, 10 or 12 years to go. David Say, who was his contemporary although appointed a Bishop (Rochester) much earlier, also stayed beyond 70, but not much: he went at 74.
I don't know why Kemp was there for so long. Was he unusually dedicated? Or were there personal reasons for not retiring- was he widowed, or soemthing like that? Or was it what an old churchwarden I knew once said of an ultra-long-serving choir member- 'an horrific example of selfish devotion to duty'? I'd like to think it wasn't the last of these. Probably l'o knows.
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Panda
Shipmate
# 2951
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Posted
I understood it was because he was made bishop before the 'out by 70' rule was made, so it didn't apply to him. Hence his retirement at age 86, having been Bishop of Chichester for 27 years, which is A Very Long Time in anyone's book.
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MrsBeaky
Shipmate
# 17663
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Posted
As far as I know (having been away from the diocese for the last three years) Eric Kemp's wife still worships at Chichester Cathedral- a friend of mine gives her lift in every Sunday so being a widower wasn't part of the equation of his longevity as Bishop.
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
Not one of ours of course, but the previous but one Bishop of Rome held office for 26˝ years. When he died, he had been a working bishop for 46˝ years. That was well over half his life.
Pio Nono in the C19 was Bishop of Rome for 31 years and a bishop for 50.
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
posted by Albertus quote:
Don't know what l'o thinks but I think of Kemp as someone who was extermely capable at one time but hung around for far too long. I had some dealings professionally with his office c1990, when he would have been, what, 75 or 76 and I got a distinct impression that some of his staff regarded him as someone who had become rather erratic and hard to keep tabs on. (Of course some people might think this is a good thing!)And at that point he still had, what, 10 or 12 years to go. David Say, who was his contemporary although appointed a Bishop (Rochester) much earlier, also stayed beyond 70, but not much: he went at 74. I don't know why Kemp was there for so long. Was he unusually dedicated? Or were there personal reasons for not retiring- was he widowed, or soemthing like that? Or was it what an old churchwarden I knew once said of an ultra-long-serving choir member- 'an horrific example of selfish devotion to duty'? I'd like to think it wasn't the last of these. Probably l'o knows.
Spot on, I was quoting +Eric as an example of what happens when there isn't either compulsory retirement or, at the very least, a regular assessment of 'fitness to practice' (for want of a better term) after a certain age.
Do I know why he stayed so long? Not as in he told me, but it was widely known that he saw his presence as an anti-women bishop as being of vital importance. His refusal to accept women priests is ironic when you know that one of his four daughters was ordained in another diocese!
He also saw it as important to "hold the line" against the acceptance of homosexuals in the church - yes, gobsmacking given all we know about the diocese of Chichester, but there you go. He was quite proud of his refusal to sign the Cambridge accord.
No, he was not a widower - in fact Mrs Kemp outlived her husband.
Was it a bad thing for the diocese that he stayed so long? Undoubtedly, but then his successor was only in post for a mere 10˝ years and, it could be argued did nearly as much damage to the image of the church in the diocese in that time; he too was rabidly anti gay, being one of the nazgűl who berated ++Rowan over Jeffrey John...
The true irony about Kemp is that for the last 12 years of his reign in Chichester the cathedral had a dean who was everything the bishop wasn't: warm, approachable, very supportive of women in the church in general and especially of women's ministry. In fact, it was the dean (John Treadgold) who gave the church in Chichester a human face - and did so against the best endeavours of much of the chapter, the Organist, diocesan and suffragan bishops.
But then the great unmentionable about the diocese of Chichester is that it is the last great bastion of freemasonry within the CofE - and Treadgold wasn't on the square, unlike Kemp, Benn, etc.
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
Do tell regarding Chichester diocese and freemasonry! I don't know a lot about freemasonry, but taken aback by +Benn's apparent involvement. It would not go down well with people who support him.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
I'm not a mason - the family tradition died out with my papa, thank goodness.
But I know enough about it (the old man had what is called "grand rank" to see it as pernicious and a thoroughly bad thing.
Is Benn a mason? I'm not sure but masonic friends have led me to believe he may be. Kemp certainly, plus a lot of the lay involvement around the cathedral in Chichester are masons.
As for people who, to quote you Pomona, "support" Benn: he's got precious little in the diocese now - hardly surprising given his involvement (culpability might not be too strong a word?) in scandals involving Peter Ball, Roy Cotton, etc.
[ 12. September 2015, 17:38: Message edited by: L'organist ]
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
Admittedly I haven't been properly back to the churches in East Sussex that were his main support, but reading between the lines there are certainly those there who support him and see the scandals as Christianity being attacked. These are the kind of people who believe everything the Christian Institute says though....
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
OK, this thread is moving pretty close to the Commandment 7 edge in these derogatory speculations about real people. Plus moving a fair way away from the intentions of the thread. Get back on the point and leave out the (potentially libellous) social banter.
Purg Guideline 3 (Stick to the Point) contains the following sentence.
quote:
Please do not wander off into unrelated issues or social banter.
Please note.
Barnabas62
Purgatory Host
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
Back on topic, I'll see if I can find out what my old shack, Jesmond Parish Church, thinks of developments after tomorrow's services.
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Forward the New Republic
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