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Blimey, CofE been at it that long?

Or is it me?

and Mary Rose, canon emeritus of Leicester Cathedral,

Tempus Fugit obvs. But wimmins vicars seem only yesterday. Yet it’s been going on long enough to have a canon emeritus?

20 thoughts on “Blimey, CofE been at it that long?”

  1. I recently shocked myself when I realised how long ago Vicar of Dibley was. Good God, 30 years! It feels subjectively part of my recent memories. It’s as though “nothing” substantial happened for 20 years and I have 20 years of memories covering four decades. A bit like how “history” jumps from Romans to Normans in one step.

  2. The first women priests were ordained in 1994.

    So more than enough time for some to have retired and got emeritus titles.

  3. No idea who she is, but wouldn’t this just mean that she was a residentiary canon of a cathedral who has now retired? She could have been a Chancellor, Treasurer or Precentor.

    She could have been ordained priest 27 years ago, of course, and there was a big “backlog” of women who had been campaigning for ordination and who were deacons, and who were already middle-aged when they became priests.

    And some people do get fast-tracked in the C of E, and others blocked. Lucy Winkett was stymied for being too outspoken, and never made it to Bishop. Yet Welby’s rise was meteoric. So was that of Sarah Mullalley, Bishop of London after 16 years.

    Rose Hudson-Wilkin, Bishop of Dover, is female, black and woke as fuck (don’t know about disabilities) so expect her to be made Archbishop of Canterbury very soon.

  4. @Sam Vara

    I always wondered how Welby shot U.K. the way he did. It’s not like he’s a hugely inspiring leader, at least to the public. So what did they think he offered internally?

  5. Oblong

    I think that part if it was the fact that Welby had had a job beforehand and a mistaken belief that he would be “businesslike” and run the CofE properly.
    David Shepherd was a Test cricketer before getting the gig as Bish of Liverpool. I was never sure of his evangelical credentials.

  6. I was thinking the other day that in the 1990s was generally benign. Nothing happened for a very long time. I came to the UK in 1993 and was unemployed (and at college) until 1999 and it rarely felt arduous, I had two lodgers for most of that time that covered my living costs. I certainly felt better off than I do today.

  7. @ Oblong,

    As Ottokring says, I think it was about managerial experience. There was a huge need to manage decline, plus paving the way for the gay marriage issue.

    Ironically, Welby’s prior experience was in the oil industry, which is now considered in the Church to be shockingly unwoke.

  8. . . . is BoJO toast quickly or slowly now?

    Don’t know whether he can slither through, but the Tories are toast anyway. The majority of the country wants more “safety” via restrictions and experimental drugs for toddlers (as demonstrated by the voluntary lockdown directly instructed by Chris Witty*). The Tories provide that or lose. If they provide that, their base won’t come out – they lose anyway.

    *And our de facto leader is telling us we have a minimum of 18 months more of this shit, and only come out via a new wonder vaccine. Around the world six years of Covid planning is being made, so this will be an general election issue. And that election will have a lot of postal voting.

    The only hope is that Omicron is such a dud in terms of serious illness and death that the doomsayers can’t hide it.

  9. We buried one of my parents south of the border. There was a local Kirk so the minister came along to officiate. It was vastly amusing seeing my English cousins goggle at the sight of a “woman vicar”. You may not get many laughs out of the Kirk but that was a good one. (How did she do? Very impressive.)

  10. “The only hope is that Omicron is such a dud in terms of serious illness and death that the doomsayers can’t hide it.”

    They seem to be managing alright when it comes to hiding the total absence of climate disaster.

  11. Given how this ‘diversity’ stuff works it might not have been all that long.

    Typically a handful are picked to be fast-tracked, time-in-rank and tenure requirements (or even capability) be damned – gotta get one in the higher ranks so we can show we’re not ‘ists.

  12. And then my comment exposes the weakness of these things – regardless of the reality of the situation, people are gonna say she got the position on the strength of her genitals, not her qualifications.

  13. Does the CofE run a final salary pension scheme?

    It certainly does. One that pays spouse pension to a same-sex spouse, unreduced even when that spouse is younger than the member by 40 years…

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