Dear friends in Christ, we meet in his name, as the pilgrim people of God, to do the work of his Church and I thank you for your attendance at this Diocesan Synod of Cork, Cloyne and Ross – my fifth as Bishop!

This year, unlike other years, I have chosen not to comment on any of the many issues of national relevance. Instead I have chosen an introspective approach: looking at ourselves in order to strengthen our engagement with our core activities and our obligations to wider households of society and the Church.

Consultation about Diocesan Synod

As promised last year I undertook a process of consultation about the format of Diocesan Synod. I am grateful to all who replied and you have clearly set out for you the fruits of that study. It was subsequently debated by Diocesan Council and a group set up to look at it.

As an experiment this year, at the conclusion of this address you will be afforded, an opportunity to discuss the issues raised. Again at your suggestion we are experimenting with PowerPoint.

The motion that has been tabled for the end of the day is also a reminder to all of us of the possibilities afforded by the correct use of our forum and its procedures.

Most of all I wish to take the opportunity, as you did in your replies to the consultation to affirm the importance of the work of Diocesan Synod. We should not forget that, as things are presently structured, Diocesan Synod facilitates that administration which empowers the framework of ministry within the Diocese. Without it we could not get on with our business from year to year. It is a worrying trend, as I said in a recent issue of the Diocesan Magazine, when some undervalue Synod, by non-attendance or disparaging remarks.

Five Year Overview

Heading for the five year point in a ministry inevitably brings with it a measure of reflection and analysis. But how do you measure ministry or the life of a Church? At a confirmation recently a visiting godparent suggested to me that on a Monday morning the clergy should be required to submit to me as “area manager” the figures for the previous week. The Church is not measurable in those sort of ways, yet there are defining minimums: for example, the conduct of worship, the care of the sick, visiting and knowing the people etc.

Another Ministry Dominated Year

It will come as no surprise that this has been another year dominated by the theme of ministry. There was the Ministry Summit in September with a follow-up meeting in March. Our Ministry Advisory Group has been continuing its work.

The reality is not comfortable

Strategic Planning

On 1st May there were 47 vacant parishes (just over 10% of all the parishes) in the Church of Ireland, and since then we know of two further ones in our own Diocese making three this year: Fermoy (an appointment which has now lapsed to me as Bishop), and coming up Abbeystrewry and Youghal. On an encouraging note two people from the Diocese have offered themselves and, this month, been approved for training for ordination.

There seems, however, to be little sense of all-island overview of this dilemma. Boards of Nomination and Bishops in each Diocese simply work away trying to fill gaps as they arise. We take from one and another takes from us. Pieces are moving around as on a chessboard, but the fact that pieces are missing from the set rendering the game unplayable in this format hasn’t been grappled with.

It is against this type of background that I regret the inability of the Church of Ireland nearly 7 years ago to undertake the then researched and advocated process of Strategic Planning. Instead of the proactive addressing of infrastructural and policy issues we have reactively lurched from issue to issue, even turning a blind eye to some core pressures such as this on our existence as a Church. When we meet nationally as a Church we seem to become paralysed at the thought of institutional change, while paradoxically being quite creative in the area of worship.

A case in point this year, were the admirable efforts on the part of some in this Diocese to loosen up, as an option, the timetable for working on the recruitment of new clergy to parishes. In what was interpreted by many as a regrettable act of self-interest, some clergy (but sufficient to make a majority in that order) voted it out. The irony is that no doubt some of those clergy, bemoan what they perceive as the inertia of the laity in other spheres of the Church’s life. Furthermore many laity, who in their own careers are not immune from the changes and chances of life, cannot understood why some of the clergy were not prepared to expose themselves to some level of vulnerability in order to provide that flexibility in the process which have facilitated this aspect of the Church’s work.

In my view there is far too much instability in the deployment of the ministry within the Church: a more stable pattern is, at least in this Diocese, perhaps a pipe dream, but much needed at this juncture for the sake of the Gospel and the ministry entrusted to us.

Turning to ministry…. and first to the ministry of lay people:

Lay Ministry

The ministry we have is God’s ministry entrusted to all of who are. Those of us who are priests do well to remember - to use the title of Father George Guiver’s recent book - that God calls us to be “Priests in a People’s Church”

In this connection I wish today to affirm and underscore the potent lay ministry that is already at work in this diocese. I have to say that I find unsubstantiated, and at times verging on the insulting, the implication sometimes levelled that lay ministry is not potent in the Church of Ireland.

Going around the Diocese with that distinctive overview a Bishop has, I have seen lay people

• participating in the leading of worship both alone and alongside the clergy
• engaged in confirmation preparation
• doing visiting in hospitals and homes
• sustaining the work of our schools, notably in management and in the education partnership
• shaping the activities of young people
• making immense sacrifices for uniformed youth organisations
• bringing their faith into daily lives in the work place
• doing what needs to be done in the parishes
• chipping in with the gifts that the clergy do not have
• fund-raising
• expanding the horizons of their faith through the Bishop’s Course in Theology and a host of other programmes
• serving on the committees we as a diocese and church have chosen to appoint
• shaping and sustaining the future of institutions with diocesan links such as St Luke’s Home, Garryduff, Lapps Court, Kingston College, the Gift Houses in Kinsale and in a host of other charities and projects.
• And this ministry is at its most potent in the involvement of so many of you in the wider life and institutions of our Irish society, something which cannot be dislocated from our Christian vocation by a blinkered and sterile definition of the life of faith.

Where we as a Church let you and one another down is when

• we put too many expectations on a number of extremely sacrificial individuals
• we fail to provide enough training and the backup that is so crucial to so many of these activities

Cutbacks

Turning to the matter of the resources that are needed to provide this ministry, people, referring to the unfolding economic stringencies of the time, occasionally say to me that the Diocese has to find ways to cut back. And like every organisation it probably does. What is usually meant, however, is that the cutback should come in the amount of the Diocesan Assessment sought from parishes.

This, I believe, is the last place where cutbacks should happen. The assessment provides for the ministry – the work, a core activity of the Church. Far from cutting core activity, we need to sustain, develop and innovate in that area. I f we curtail the distinctive offering we make – our ministry in worship, pastoral care and ,mission we are left with little else to offer that is relevant.

The question then has to be asked “where else might we cut back?” What are we spending too much on? We need honestly to ask ourselves what infrastructure do we actually need for the work of the Church in our area. Do we need all 76 worship venues, for example?

These have to be questions that are addressed locally in the parishes. We have seen before how centralised decision-making, albeit following local consultation, cultivates its own set of problems and hurts. Youghal, Moviddy and St Luke’s are examples of local reflection at Select Vestry level that has led to strategic change.

What worries me is that many places, rooted in a “keep the show on the road” syndrome, are not reflecting incisively in a way that would be more conducive to, in fact, sustaining the life of the Church meaningfully. Only you in the parishes can do that, and when you do the Diocese as a whole will endeavour to support you.

Too much for too few

Now that I’m in my fifth year as Bishop my sense of the Diocese is that too few people are trying to do too much. I make two propositions to challenge you:

• We are trying to sustain too much infrastructure.
• As a result we may be denying resources for the provision of new forms of ministry - our core activity, as I say.

The multiplicity of venues gives rise, for example, to another syndrome: the clergy, readers and retired clergy are having to sustain too demanding a pattern of worship each Sunday: a schedule which, in many cases, goes beyond the spiritual resources any one individual might have. My colleagues and friends in other Churches abroad are often astonished to hear some of our clergy take up to five Services a Sunday. “How can you preach and lead worship meaningfully more than once they ask? Which human being has the spiritual resources and to do that?” The rushing around parishes, with no time for the people truly to gather with the pastor, is, I believe, detrimental to one of our strong points: that sense of worship and community life – priest and people together in the life of faith.

The simple reality is that what we have at the moment and what we are trying to sustain is not sustainable in the way in which we are currently addressing it. This is most notable at a time of vacancy in parishes. I remarked at one juncture last year in the Diocesan Council that it would only take one more of the clergy to get sick and we would be unable to provide the services that are required. At Christmas and Easter we had to find alternative ways of making the necessary Eucharistic provision. With my authorisation, at short notice, in two situations, a person other than a priest had to bring the already consecrated bread and wine (as indeed happened in the early Church) to worshipping communities, which would, otherwise, not have been able to receive Holy Communion on the festivals in question.

The Need for Foresight

Against this background I believe, far too much of the life in our parishes is characterised by reactivity. Under God we need to take more responsibility for ourselves – in imaginative planning, in deciding what needs to be done, and in resourcing it.

Examples of this reactive approach might well be:

• If there’s something to be fixed someone will fix it.
• If we need to pay for something we’ll pay for it.

Those are good qualities of faithfulness but they need to be augmented with additional approaches, and tested by bigger questions:

• what is the role and work of the Church in this place?
• Is the way we are currently working the most potent in terms of the use of our resources?

ICICYMA

We have examples in our diocesan life of such proactivity.

Recently I was at the victory dinner for Cork Church of Ireland Hockey Club; to celebrate the win by men’s team of the all Ireland Club Championships: a significant and noteworthy achievement. Looking around at Garryduff brought back memories. When that place was a private house remote in the countryside I recall going there to play with a friend. Hockey matches were on the grass pitch where Lapps Court is on the Glasheen Road.

It really was quite an act of faith and foresight way back then to “up sticks” and move out to the country. Now, all those years later, Garryduff is well-located in a place of vibrant relevance and opportunity at the heart of a local community.

I mention this because it is a commendable and challenging example to the diocese of foresight, faith and strategic planning that has been fruitful.

Training

When it comes to ministry today and the work of the Church in general it is clear to me that the era of training people at the start of their ministerial careers and letting them get on with it, boosted by up to date reading and study, is no longer sustainable. In-service training can no longer be the Cinderella of our strategy.

Clergy and CME

I have made the resourcing of the clergy a central plank in these early years of my episcopate, and the scope of that has been limited by resources, notwithstanding your freewill generosity at confirmations and ordinations, as well as small annual grant from the Priorities’ Fund.

In the materials circulated to you, you will have noticed a summary of a study document I tabled at Diocesan Council concerning Continuing Ministerial Education. Learning is a life-long process. The purpose of CME is to equip and develop the Church’s minister in order that they may stimulate and enable the whole Church to participate ore fully in the mission of God in the world.

I run the risk of saying that a lot has been done but there is more to do. In order to facilitate that core strategy a resolution is being tabled before you today by Diocesan Council concerning funding, which I hope you will support.

Safeguarding Trust

Another illustration of the need for on-going training is in the area of the Church’s policy on child protection Safeguarding Trust. This policy was coming on stream before and just at the time I arrived as Bishop. I am concerned at the patchy implementation of the policy in parts of the Diocese, and it will be one of the crucial tasks between now and next year’s Synod to address this matter.

Diocesan Ministry Day

In relation to Ministry, we thank those who represented us at the Church of Ireland Summit on Ministry. You will gather from my address that issues of ministry in the widest sense need to be addressed locally within the Diocese. In order to give leadership in stimulating that reflection I have planned, and will ask Diocesan Council at its meeting in 11 days time to endorse my plan, to host a day of reflection on ministry in the Diocese on Saturday 27th September in the Celtic Ross Hotel, Rosscarbery – a day for representatives from the parish, Diocesan Council and those engaged in ministry, ordained and lay. I have recruited a willing facilitator in the person of the Reverend Chris Webb, who is Renewal Officer with the Council for Mission and Ministry of the Church in Wales. He spoke ably at the meeting of Celtic Bishops in Llandudno last October and his presentation would, I believe, by analogy, enable and empower us here too.

Visit of the Commission on Ministry

Coincidentally and happily, one week later, by decision of the House of Bishops, representatives of the Commission on Ministry will visit the Diocese on 4th October to hear our response to and engagement with the issues raised at the national Summit on Ministry.

Accumulated Challenges

In these two ways, we will have the opportunity to reflect creatively and practically. Practical that reflection must be.

We have all seen, in recent years, how an intensifying social and legal scenario is affecting the life of the Church. It was always expected that churches should not only keep the law, legitimate practice, but also be to the fore as role models and pace setters: best practice.

The first sign that I remember in my ministry of the arrival of the new era was that of health and safety. I expect all our parishes and schools now have their health and safety statements. Soon afterwards there was a new awareness of Copyright, and yet many parishes are still infringing this one week by week.

Then the list accelerated:

• the Education Act, 1998
• the Equal Status Act, 2000
• the planning legislation with the consequent listing of most of our buildings
• just six weeks ago there was new Data Protection legislation

It worries me when Churches seek derogations from legislative developments that are being imposed on every one else in society. Of course our right to freedom of religious belief has to be balanced with the other rights being legislated for, but religious belief is too easily invoked in order to perpetuate injustice or inappropriate attitudes. Moreover, where we ought in the past to have been leaders in best practice, we have not always done so.

People with Disabilities

A relevant case in point in this European Year of the Disabled, as the Olympic flame journeys around Ireland and as we prepare to celebrate the Special Olympics here, is that of the proposed disability legislation. Late last I was told by a legislator not to worry about the possible disability legislation. “Churches will be exempt”, he said. Recently I mentioned this to a lawyer friend who works for the disabled, and he quite rightly said “Why would it take legislation for Churches to do the right thing for disabled people any way?”

He is right. Areas like these are ones in which the churches, as a matter of moral imperative, should be to the fore in best practice, in showing the way as an expression of gospel values of Jesus’ love, inclusiveness and solidarity.

This raises many questions about many of our properties, though there are some notable examples around the diocese where huge work has been done to make buildings suitable and inclusive.

• What about gravel paths and uneven approaches for the elderly and infirm?
• Proximate car parking?
• Steps?
• Space in our churches so that those in wheelchairs can be truly, physically in the congregation.
• Not just for those who travel, but also for other locally – what about toilet facilities? Somewhere for baby-changing
• Running hot water to wash hands
• What about those who are hard of hearing?

Much of the resulting exclusion is unwitting. Nonetheless, in these, and in so many other ways, I believe we have a lot of catching up to do.

Diocesan Office

This has been highlighted for us in the past year with another example at Diocesan level in relation to the accommodation we rent for our diocesan office space. It is upstairs, without a lift, and with limited and haphazard parking opportunities.

A review is under way and consideration is being given to the re-location of the office. Addressing all of these things costs money.

Looking ahead – six things:

The year ahead will be busy. Certainly I can see six major things on the agenda;

• the review of the implementation of Safeguarding Trust
• the reflection on ministry that I’ve just described
• the General Synod has sent to us, for response before next January its study on sectarianism within the life of the Church entitled The Hard Gospel. This will necessitate an additional meeting of Diocesan Synod to address this theme later in the year. In that regard the Bishops of Cashel and Limerick have accepted the suggestion that we consider holding a regional synod to undertake that work.
• We are invited to prepare for and to engage with the potential offered by the fact that in 2005 Cork will be European Capital of Culture.
• At General Synod the Archbishop of Armagh signalled that the Bishops intend later this year to issue a discussion paper about human sexuality.
• And then there will be most exciting arrival of the new Book of Common Prayer which will be in our hands and on our pews this time next year.

Book of Common Prayer, 2004

The new Book of Common Prayer will replace both the Book of Common Prayer as revised in 1926 and the Alternative Prayer Book ,1984, bringing together in one volume the best of old and new has now passed through General Synod This time next year it will be in our hand and on our pews. The Dean of Cork has accepted my invitation to assist in its introduction in the Diocese. He and I will put before Diocesan Council a programme to that end at our next meeting.

Covenant with the Methodist Church

Our Covenant with the Methodist Church in Ireland is an inspiring opportunity to catalyse our ministry in new and exciting directions. Copies were circulated for display in each parish. At the end of the day the Covenant, if it is to be meaningful, has to find tangible expression locally. It cannot be worked out by the Diocese alone. I’m delighted to welcome all our ecumenical guests and visitors here today, but in the light of the signing of our covenant with the Methodist Church, I look forward later on, with your permission, to inviting the Reverend Laurence Graham to address us, and we welcome him to our Synod today.

The Right Reverend Roy Warke

I am sure Synod would wish to send its greetings to my predecessor, the Right Reverend Roy Warke on the forthcoming 50th anniversary of his ordination.

The Right Reverend Sam Poyntz

In the same vein, next September, the Right Reverend Sam Poyntz will celebrate the silver jubilee of his ordination as Bishop. We salute him also.

The Reverend Canon Oliver Peare and Mrs Norah Good

During the year we were saddened by the death of a faithful priest of the Diocese. With his gentle, affable and kindly personality, his pastoral instincts and perceptive mind, Canon Oliver Peare, was much loved. Born in 1917 he came to this Diocese in 1955, serving successively in Youghal, Abbeystrewry and Kinsale; and offering his ministry to the wider Church as Rural Dean, on Diocesan Council, many other Diocesan committees as well as General Synod and Standing Committee.

More recently we were saddened by the death in Easter Week of Mrs Norah Good, a member of this Diocesan Synod, a Diocesan Reader, who also served the Diocese in her membership of General Synod, central Church Committees and Diocesan Council. She was also our representative on CACTM, the Central Advisory Council on Training for the Ministry and a tutor in Church History.

We remember them both with profound thanksgiving and extend our sympathy to their families and friends.

Deployments

Since last Diocesan Synod the Archdeacon, the Very Reverend Michael Burrows, Canon George Hilliard and the Very Reverend Alan Marley all made internal moves to Moviddy, St Fin Barre’s, UCC and Cloyne respectively. The Reverend Hazel Minion was ordained last Monday night and we congratulate and welcome her. The Rev. Joy Ferguson and the reverend Stella Mikhail (not with us today because I asked them to go on retreat – the only time when the retreat house could facilitate them) were ordained deacon last ear and are to be ordained priest in 10 days. The Reverends Andrew McCroskery, Judith Hubbard-Jones, Nigel Dunne and Daniel Owen arrived in the Diocese for the first time; and the Reverend Adrian Wilkinson returned to join our work of ministry here in Cork, Cloyne and Ross.

The Reverend Peter Anderson moved to the South of France, as did the Reverend Peter Massey. The term of the contract of Captain Keith Dyde came to an end and he returned to work in England.

Soon the Reverend Trevor Lester will leave for Waterford, and we congratulate him on his appointment as Dean; and the Reverend Sue Watterson will leave to become Warden of the Church’s Ministry of Healing.

This is a lot of change in just one year in a small organisation. So it’s been a busy year also for Boards of Nomination. I take this opportunity to thank all parochial and diocesan members of the Committee of Patronage.

Wider scenario

Much of what I have said is inward looking to our work as a Diocese and Church. None of what I have said detracts from our obligation to live out our discipleship in an exciting but challenging society and world, in ecumenical fellowship with our brothers and sisters; in dialogue with people of other faiths; and together with all among whom we discover common ground and cause.

Thank you

As always I could not approach the end of my address without highlighting my immense gratitude to so many people who serve the diocese in so many ways: to the Archdeacon; our Diocesan Communications Officer who is so creative in her communication of what we are doing; our Diocesan Webmaster Brendan Kearns; our Diocesan Architect, Bill Brady; our Diocesan Registrar, John Jermyn, his secretary Jean Wade and the so-many colleagues in that law firm who advise me generously on hosts of occasions ; and my own secretary, Ruth Wolfe; to Ruby Veitch, assistant secretary at the Diocesan Office whose halo I can’t polish enough, and to our Diocesan Secretary, Wilfred Baker – in the Church of Ireland Gazette Cromlyn wrote that he had never heard of him before – “where has Cromlyn been all these years that he has missed out on our gem who steadily does so much for the Diocese and for the Church in the Southern Province?”. Thank you to each and everyone of you for all that you do.

For my part as Bishop looking back on these approaching five years it has been demanding and at times frustrating: to say otherwise would be foolish. It has also been rewarding. In the past year I was pleased to travel to Finland to preach at the tenth anniversary Service marking the signing of the Porvoo Agreement with which I was involved so closely; and also to make a four day pastoral visit to President Pat Cox, at the European Parliament; there were the great number of early morning journeys to Dublin with the consequent opportunity to scrutinise the works on the Port Tunnel in that city – I spent so long sitting on that M1 in cars that I think I have nearly served my apprenticeship as a construction worker; but let me assure you, that after all those distractions, it is the round of Episcopal ministry in the Diocese, brining me into contact with you my fellow pilgrims in faith that has sustained and strengthened me for our journey together.

It is this to business-like reflection on this pilgrimage together here in Cork, Cloyne and Ross that we turn as we being our work as a Diocesan Synod today.

In the face of so many great challenge we might be tempted to despair or to shake our heads with “argh”, but we trust that God the Holy Trinity who calls us together, will bless us all as we seek to be faithful to his calling.