More of the same

"Thank you for your kind applause", as Madame Edith used to say in 'Allo 'Allo! after her star turn                                                          Source: Church in Wales

No altar cross or candles on the nave altar when the appointment of the Bishop of Llandaff, June Osborne, wasconfirmed in Sacred Synod last Friday. Instead the altar was used as a microphone stand. Apt for another political rally!

The first reported utterance of the new bishop on the occasion of her consecration the following day was to urge "sexuality-row" Llandaff diocese to move on, again drawing unwelcome attention to the Electoral College row after the Western Mail re-hashed the Jeffrey John self-promotion story on 11 July, an episode the bench had been trying to bury with their appointment of the Dean of Salisbury, the Very Rev June Osborne as bishop-designate.

More successfully buried had been the Church of England Osborne Report on homosexuality which should have been published in 1989 but surfaced in 2012. Some believe this report damaged Osborne's chances of preferment in the Church of England. Not so in the Church in Wales.

Pursuing another pet theme, bishop June offered her view of the church as a secular institution given over to the advancement of women in a BBC interview which formed part of their coverage of her consecration. She said:

"Isn't it fantastic, Wales becomes the Province of the Anglican Communion that has the highest percentage of women bishops in it and that has to feel right because one woman is great but more than one woman in an organisation, people know this, really begins to make a change for the better because gender parity, gender equality, women feeling that their voice is respected just as the men's voices. It's what the Church in Wales has been working on for some years now and so I just think that bishop Jo in St Davids will be a fantastic colleague but it will also mean the the workings of the bench of bishops and the whole church will just become more normal. It's what people know in the normal life is mixed gender teams."

Yet more of the same in a radio interview here (advance to 51.12).

Rather than the Cornerstone, Jesus Christ has become the stepping-stone for women to pursue their careers in the church, demanding parity rather than spirituality.

Stand by for more of 'what the Church in Wales has been working on for some years', substituting politics for faith when bishop June and her 'fantastic colleague' bishop Jo 'make normal the workings of the bench of bishops and the whole church'.

What bishop June failed to mention when she referred to the 'whole church' was that she had in mind the Church in Wales, one of the smallest provinces in the Anglican Communion, and possibly the Church of England. The vast majority of the world's 80 million Anglicans, along with the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, regard provinces such as the Church in Wales and the Church of England as being in error which puts her views into context.