The challenges facing the Church in Wales as it approaches its centenary are the challenges facing Wales, the Archbishop of Wales said today.
Poverty, depression, addiction and low aspiration– these are the issues the church has to grapple with if it is to continue to serve every community in Wales, said Dr Barry Morgan in his President’s Address at the meeting of the Governing Body of the Church in Wales.
And as it marks 90 years of being “dis-established”, the Church in Wales must seize the chance to be a key partner in an increasingly devolved nation.
Dr Morgan said, “Our challenges are the challenges that Wales faces – poverty, depression, addiction, loneliness, lack of aspiration, lack of self-esteem. We have the chance to show that there are alternative ways of tackling these problems – ways that are truly effective, rather than short-term patches of pills and paperwork and packages of insufficient grants. We have a Gospel to proclaim and we have a vision to which Wales can aspire – one that is self-aware, self-confident and grounded in faith.”
The story of the Church’s dis-establishment, while deeply unpopular among members in 1920, should give it hope for the future, said Dr Morgan.
“Over the years the Church in Wales acquired a new sense of national standing, helping to heal, at times of tragedy like Aberfan, working for the preservation of the Welsh language through its liturgy, acting as a guardian of the nation’s conscience in such situations as the miners’ strike in the eighties; we never lost our sense of being part of the wider picture and it was with pride and sacrifice that we saw the elevation of my predecessor to the throne of Augustine just seven years ago.
“In other words, impending disaster and crisis did not happen and in the words of the folk singer Dafydd Iwan “Rydym yma o hyd” – “we are still here”. Over the last 90 years, the Church in Wales has become a distinctive church and Province, better able to serve the people of Wales, better able to identify with the nation of Wales whilst still belonging to a world-wide communion. With such an experience we can help our nation not to be afraid of devolution and of the benefits it can bring within a United Kingdom framework.”
The Archbishop called on the Church to look beyond its own immediate concerns and to seize opportunities to make a difference for the future. He said clergy – “often the last professional person left in some communities “ – could have greater engagement in public life. The Church, too, he said, must accept all people unconditionally as “endless wrangling over the place of, for example, women or gay people, inevitably affects our mission”. Church buildings, he said, could be used to greater advantage for the whole community. And there was a need to resolve long-standing internal issues, such as the ordination of women bishops. He said, “They are minor questions in comparison to the larger questions our church and nation faces. We should not allow them to absorb a lot of introspective energy for years to come. Too often we take great initial steps towards reform then take fright and run for the shallows. We were among the first of Anglican Provinces to ordain women as deacons in 1980 and then did not proceed to ordain them as priests until 1997. And we still haven’t taken the next logical step of making it at least possible for a woman to be ordained bishop. It makes no sense at all to ordain women to the order of deacons and priests without also making it possible for them to be ordained as bishops.”
The Governing Body of the Church in Wales is meeting on Wednesday and Thursday (April 14-15) at the University of Wales, Lampeter. Following the Archbishop’s address, members will go into groups to reflect on the Church’s role over the 10 years.
