Another Church in Wales senior appointment

The Archbishop of Wales at the window in HQ which affords distant views of the Salvation Army

DHQ and the Church of St Mary's The Virgin in Butetown .  Source: Church in Wales

Hot on the heels of the Church in Wales advertisement for a Director of Welsh Language and Bilingual Mission (Grade F – £36,225 to £40,986 per annum) comes another bishops' adviser senior appointment. This time for a Director of Education Policy (Grade G – £42,692 to £48,302 per annum).

According to the job description the post holder will be responsible to the Bench of Bishops and the Standing Committee of the Governing Body of the Church in Wales through the Bishop holding the Education portfolio (currently the Bishop of Llandaff) for the content of work. The post-holder will be a senior advisor to the Bishops and will be responsible for ensuring that they are kept well briefed and well-informed about developments in the areas of work covered by this role.

With a bloated bench of  six diocesan bishops for a province the size of a Church of England diocese and no sign of reducing the bureaucracy as recommended in the Harries Review (Section 15), one has to wonder how the bishops spend their time with advisers assisting them with the briefs. Perhaps that is why they are so out of touch, spending time indulging their LGBTI/same-sex marriage obsessions.

In a previous entry, 'The cost of change', I noted that the  bishop of Llandaff, the holder of the Education portfolio, had said, "You can talk about it as a story of decline but actually what it is about is change." So there we have it. More bureaucracy.

While the peasants at the bottom of the pile are urged to dig deeper there is no shortage of money for the lord bishops' advisers.

There is a salutary tale from the US on the decline of the Episcopal Church (here) but the bench continues to look to TEC for support. Their ex-Presiding Bishop is mentoring ♀June and ♀Joanna.

Female bishop mentoring                                 Source: Twitter

Since we were led to expect so much from women bishops it is a bit of a mystery why they need mentoring:

“People were delighted in my appointment because it was fairly unexpected that in a single year the Church in Wales went from having six men as its bishops to a third being women. I can’t tell you the amount of pleasure and delight it causes people. It’s now what we expect, we don’t expect there to be barriers for women. That is as true for spiritual leadership and the church as for medicine or journalism or the boardroom.” - June Osborne.

Not without substantial help apparently. Who is paying the mentoring bill and why choose a woman who has beenexposed for her non-Christian theology?

If there is so much money about might I suggest another senior appointment? Someone who can advise the bench how to get back on track after being derailed by the former archbishop and his heretical mentor. That would be money well spent.

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Another nice mess

As my friend Barack said to me George, "Well, here's another nice mess we've gotten o urselves into!"

The world and his wife it seems are piling on the pressure to tell us Brits that we should remain in Europe. To leave would be a catastrophe. If that is so, why in the world has Dave 'gotten' us into this mess at enormous cost financially and politically?

'Paddy Pantsdown' wagged his finger throughout BBC Question Time on Thursday as he previewed what President Barack Obama was to say about American blood being shed in Europe in the US's contribution to the 1917 - 1918 and the 1941- 1945 wars fighting for freedom in Europe. As Albert Steptoe once said, it might have been the '17 - '18 and '41 - '45 wars for them but it was the '14 - '18 and '39 - '45 wars for the rest of us.

All in the 'IN' camp at home and abroad appear to be reading from the same news sheet prepared and circulated by No 10. That is in addition to the ?9 million of tax payers money they have spent on circulating propaganda for the 'IN' campaign. So much so that it is difficult to trust anything that is said or written about the consequences of leaving Europe.

Paddy Pantsdown claims that every important world organisation and every world leader "with the exception Vladimir Putin" wants us to remain in Europe. Indeed, the President of the United States has gone so far as to threaten that the UK would be left at the back of the queue when negotiating future trade deals with the US if we left, not that Obama will be President in that eventuality. But so much for friendship and our 'special relationship'. When self-interest rears its head it is OK in the US but not in Great Britain!

For many I suspect the head says IN but the heart says OUT. The decision would be easier if the self-perpetuating bureaucracy in Brussels desisted from regulating everything they can think of plus anything else they had not thought of when it comes to light. If Turkey is allowed in that will allow another flood of economic migrants with all the dangers already apparent as they try to impose their alien ideology on their hosts. The last thing we need is more failed multiculturalism.

My feeling is that the British people have had enough of being told what to think and what to do and are inclined to vote with their hearts, sink or swim.

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