This morning's trip to the Church Times website exposed a news Tweet that shed light on my experience of disquiet at Llandaff Cathedral yesterday. The new Dean has resigned after two months in office. I soon discovered there was a curt press release on the Diocesan website and a news article on the Media Wales website, alleging some rejecting her ministry as a woman priest, and an on-going remuneration dispute with adult Cathedral choir-men - this time focussing on performance fees for a series of planned BBC Songs of Praise appearances.
I don't bother to follow Cathedral affairs, but enjoy worshipping there occasionally. I'm am always made to feel welcome by clergy and people. But there always seem to be fusses and tensions about something hardly worth fretting about. The choir pay affair started well before Dean Janet came. But if professional musicians aren't getting paid Musician's Union rates why not? Aren't they all signed up members? If not why not? Is it against their religion, or is it ruled out of their contracts. Do they have contracts? Or it is because the Cathedral can't afford to pay them what the Union thinks they're worth? If it's any of these things, it's a poisonous legacy for a new incumbent to face, hard to resolve, even if you have the full support of every element of the broad Cathedral constituency.
No doubt more will come out as time passes, the Dean has not yet told her story, but maybe there's nothing to tell. If the Cathedral constituency failed to unite in welcome, or in support for their newly appointed Dean, it suggests something Anglicans should consider even more disturbing than obvious gender and remuneration based disputes.
Refusal to work with the new Dean in her mission and ministry as the congregation promised to do at her installation, is an act of rebellion not against her, but against the Bishop who presented and appointed her. Archbishop Barry recruited someone he considered the best person for the job. The appointee takes care of the church and community which is the Bishop's home base, focal point of his diocesan jurisdiction, a spiritual place in the hearts of all who identify themselves as Anglican and under his episcopal care.
Jesus said "Whoever listens to you listens to me; whoever rejects you rejects me; but whoever rejects me rejects him who sent me." Christians are meant to unite under the leadership of their bishop or local leader, whether their policies or gender are agreeable or not. Even if they find episcopal rule to be contentious, harsh or confusing, the consensus of faith is that the authority exercised through this office is of God. So, if the bishop assigns someone to work with a community, those involved should thank God, make an effort, and get on with whatever needs to be done. This time, it's all come apart, shamefully, publicly. What lessons are there now to be learned?
If a Cathedral constituency, whatever its mix of reservations and resentments, cannot unite behind the pastor its Bishop has entrusted to them, something is profoundly wrong. Dean Janet has sensibly taken herself out of the equation. Why should she allow herself to be destroyed due to unresolved issues between Bishop and Cathedral constituency?
The Cathedral admirably welcomes a disproportionately large number of people to worship and for pastoral offices. Some are refugees from dysfunctional or dying parishes or free church congregations where the faithful can no longer find adequate spiritual food. It's not easy to integrate different demands for nurture and expectations of involvement into the life of an establishment rooted in tradition. It's a balancing act requiring work from everyone, but in the end, Cathedral life is not a refuge, nor an end in itself. Its identity and mission relies entirely on the fact that it is the Bishop's home church and must come to terms with the Bishop's policy and agenda, like it or not.
Take the episcopal throne away, and it's nothing more than a big successful middle class congregational mega-church with fancy ceremonies. Maybe it's time to challenge the Cathedral's pretensions to relevance by re-locating the Bishop's home church (and epsicopal throne) to a ravaged housing estate hall-church in the back of beyond. Oh, but Canon lawyers wouldn't approve of that!
I bet Pope Francis does it first.
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