The Cathedrals Working Group has issued a draft report. It has to be said that the group has worked fast. It was only set up towards the end of April last year and the 100 page report has no fewer than 65 recommendations – or ‘lxv’ as the report has it, choosing to list them with Roman numerals. In fact, it has one more than lxv (that would be lxvi) as the authors also insist that the report is adopted wholesale; they believe that the necessary reform will not come if only the more congenial recommendations are cherry-picked.
And what is the necessary reform? Well its not that Cathedrals should do a better job. The belief is that English Cathedrals are very good at being English Cathedrals. This is a not a generalisation that would be made of, say, Parish Churches today.
The problem with Cathedrals is the running them. Over the last couple of years two Cathedrals have got into such embarrassing messes that the Deans resigned. It might come as a surprise, then, to discover that what the draft report seems to be recommending is that Deans are given significantly more power and responsibility in the future. Certainly in terms of the perennial cathedral dynamic of Deans and Residentiary Canons (sometimes parodied as a situation in which a cat is watched by several mice) it’s the Deans who go up while canonries are reimagined as early or mid-career posts which people would be expected to vacate within a decade.
But counterbalancing this is that the new super-deans will find that the Bishop, who also gains more power through this, will appoint the lay vice-chair of the Chapter That will sometimes be very interesting, in a Chinese sort of way.
One aspect of the report that I wholeheartedly applaud is the attempt to make a clear distinction between governance and management in Cathedrals. And I agree that the best way to set about this is to abandon the experiment of ‘Cathedral Council’ and to stack Chapters with non-exective members who will know that their responsibilities are limited to governance, strategy and the long-term issues of sustainability.
I also welcome the emphasis on internal audit, though by the time I got to the end of the document I did have review-fatigue, and I find it hard to imagine that the amount of accounting, reviewing, auditing, reporting and managing will actually be sustainable.
People like me are supposed to critique such reports for being theologically light. I don’t feel inclined to do that. Not because I am especially convinced by the chapter on ‘mission, role and ecclesiology’ – indeed that chapter repeatedly points to its own limits – but because I don’t think that theology can or should be shoehorned into the sort of shape and structure that such reports must have. That Cathedrals should be places of theological exploration, discovery, conversation and above all else energy, is something that I do believe. Quite how that it organised and encouraged is another matter; but perhaps that’s where the ‘bishop’s teaching ministry’ comes in. We need our bishops not to be people who can tell us what they believe to be the most important points of doctrine in the manner of an old style instructor, but to be able to stimulate the imagination of individuals and communities so that theology is seen not as a dull spectator sport, but as an vital and vitalising part of the discipleship of adults and children of all ages – indeed anyone who can put a question mark at the end of a sentence containing the word ‘God’.
It will be fascinating to see how the report is received. My guess is that the reviewers will get their way. Even if they don’t get all lxvi recommendations through I think they will get a good l accepted, maybe even lv. As a result risks will be better controlled, strategies better conceived, projects better managed and finances will be under control (this is where all should cheer). But I think it will be good at the human level too. Cathedrals are very complicated – the ‘palimpsest’ analogy used in the theology chapter applies, in my view, to every aspect of their life. And that makes them extremely difficult to read. Perfect clarity, transparency and lucidity will never come to any human situation, never mind one that has history and spirituality, together with all manner of local and maybe national mythology, in the mix. But the drive must be in the direction of clarity and accountability, and this report is to be welcomed for giving a clear lead in that direction.
You can find the report here Cathedrals Working Group Draft Report
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