From The Church Times-FOR many people in the country, the great countdown was to the Olympic Games, the Secretary General to the General Synod, William Fittall, said at a press briefing last Friday. For many in the Church, however, an important countdown was to the final vote on women bishops at the General Synod, when it meets in York from 6 to 10 July.
“It is the first time in 20 years when the Church of England has to face so significant a two-thirds vote. Some will go away rejoicing, while others will be disappointed.”
The Church had long been trying to work out a position where there were not just winners and losers, Mr Fittall said, but a way forward that could deliver good news to as many people as possible.
That crucial issue, timed to take up the whole morning of Monday 9 July, will dominate the mind of the Synod, but there are other significant items on the agenda: world mission, Fresh Expressions and church growth, Palestine and Israel, and the expression of faith in public life, as well as routine budgetary and financial matters, and legislative technicalities.
On Friday afternoon, however, the component parts of the General Synod, the House of Laity, and the Upper and Lower Houses (bishops and clergy respectively) of the Convocations of the Provinces of Canterbury and York must meet separately to agree by simple majorities that the Synod will take a final vote on the Article 8 business of the women-bishops Measure.
Should the House of Laity, or any two Houses of the Convocations, vote No, the whole process stops there, and the issue will no longer be on the Synod’s agenda. It was unlikely that that would happen, Mr Fittall said, but it could. (If one House of Convocation rejects the legislation, the Synod could be invited to refer it back for further consideration by the two Convocations alone.)
More here-
http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=130269
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