§ 2.34 p.m.
§ THE LORD BISHOP OF WINCHESTER rose to move to resolve, That in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act, 1919, this House do direct that the Bishops (Retirement) Measure, 1950, be presented to His Majesty for the Royal Assent. The right reverend Prelate said: My Lords, I beg to move the statutory Resolution standing in my name, with reference to the Bishops (Retirement) Measure, 1950. I am well aware that many of your Lordships are eager to resume the debate on Foreign Affairs, and I realise equally that at the present moment you rightly feel that many issues in that field are more urgent than any questions of ecclesiastical reform. I also realise that in their Report the Ecclesiastical Committee of Parliament have said that they think it expedient that this Measure should be sent forward for the Royal Assent. How easy, therefore, for me to feel that nothing further need be said by way of introducing to your Lordships this Resolution and the Measure to which it refers! On the other hand, I feel that, unlike some Assembly Measures, this Measure is of sufficient public importance to make it necessary, if only for the purpose of record, that something further should briefly be said about it than the Ecclesiastical Committee in their short Report can properly say. At any rate, I feel it my duty to make some brief observations in regard to this Measure.
§ It will be noticed that although the word "Bishop" is used throughout, by means of Section 11 the Measure is applied to Archbishops as well as to Bishops, diocesan and suffragan. It will also be noticed that the word "retirement" is used with a certain delicate ambiguity, to cover both voluntary and compulsory retirement. Part I of the Measure, if approved, will supply the 724 Church with a simple, comprehensive and, in many respects, new method of action whereby Bishops suffering from infirmity of mind or body will be able to resign and, what is more pertinent, will be able to be relieved of their office if they are unwilling to resign. Some of your Lordships may be surprised to learn that at present nobody has power to get rid of a Bishop, however disabled he is, either by physical or mental infirmity. All that can be done—and this is only in the case of mental infirmity— is for the Crown to appoint to him a coadjutor Bishop and compel him to pay the coadjutor. The coadjutor would secure the right of succession to the Bishop he is designed to help, or else, if the See of the Bishop he is helping is one of the five senior Sees, the right of succession to any Bishop who is translated to that senior See. Obviously, that would give the coadjutor an unhealthy interest in the early decease of the Bishop, and also would possibly mean the imposition after many years of a Bishop on a diocese which may be unwilling to receive him. It is felt that something should be done to amend that state of affairs.
§ Happily, since the Act of 1869, no Bishop has gone beyond a certain point in imbecility, and as a result no coadjutor has ever been nominated to act. But even in the last twenty-five years, one or two Bishops have unfortunately come near to such a state of mental infirmity and have been unwilling to resign, or slow to do so; and one or two Bishops have become so infirm physically that they could not carry on, and they also have been slow to accept the remonstrances or blandishments on which alone an Archbishop can at present rely. It is felt that the time has come for some change, and it is hoped that this Part of the Measure will get over those difficulties and remove those dangers.
§ The second Part of the Measure is relatively unimportant. It provides a particular relief which experience has shown to be desirable. The effect of it is to make a change in the Episcopal Pensions Measure, so as to allow a Bishop, although he has not attained the age of seventy and is not technically physically or mentally disabled, to retire on a modified pension if he feels that it would be in the interests of his diocese for him to do so and if his opinion is 725 shared by his Archbishop and some other Bishops. The most obvious case, and a particularly real case, is where a man has been made a Bishop say, at forty-two years of age and has been left for twenty-five years in the same diocese. He may come to feel that he has shot his bolt and has no more leadership to give, yet he cannot get out because at present there is no pension available for him.
§ Part III of the Measure is more difficult and requires a little more explanation. I say this very diffidently, but I think it should be made clear that this part of the Measure does not come before your Lordships' House because there is any fear in the Church of England that its Bishops are at the moment more likely than Bishops have been likely lately to give serious cause for being regarded as negligent of their duty or guilty in any serious sense of unbecoming conduct. Rather is this part of the Measure an interesting act of deference to the principle of "Fair shares for all." Your Lordships, and especially noble Lords on the Government side of the House, may take special interest in the fact that the commodity to be distributed fairly here is the unusual one of liability to discipline—of the maldistribution of which in the community as a whole we perhaps do not hear so much as we ought at the present time.
§ Ten years or more ago it became recognised in the Church of England that a small minority of incumbents, although not bringing themselves within the range of the terms of any definite Law or Canon, appeared to be guilty of conduct which most sensible people would regard as negligent or unbecoming to their office; and it was felt necessary that there should be set up in the Church of England some ecclesiastical tribunals on which incumbents would themselves be represented by elected members, and which, from inside knowledge and experience, would know well enough the standard of duty of incumbents at any given time and could apply it to particular cases. Consequently, the Incumbents (Discipline) Measure was passed, setting up those tribunals; and some years ago your Lordships sent it forward for the Royal Assent.
§ It was then felt that "fair for some" ought to be "fair for all", and it was quickly recognised that holders of bene- 726 fices other than parochial benefices might well place themselves under a similar form of discipline. That was done in the next Measure, the Church Dignitaries (Retirement) Measure, which received the Royal Assent. Part III of this Measure represents the conclusion of that work, and enables the Bishops to apply the same form of discipline to themselves. I think this Part of the Measure is an act of deference to the principle of fair shares for all in another sense. The Clergy (Discipline) Act of 1892 refers to a number of serious offences, and lays it down that if any clergyman other than a Bishop pleads guilty to or is found guilty of one of those offences in a temporal court, the appropriate ecclesiastical action shall at once follow; and it is made perfectly clear what that ecclesiastical action should be. Now it is realised that supposing a Bishop ever committed, or was found guilty of committing, one of those crimes, it would be far from clear how necessary and appropriate ecclesiastical action should be taken. It is claimed that this Part of this Measure will remove those doubts and possible difficulties in dealing with a situation of that kind.
§ It only remains for me to mention, in almost as many sentences, some other important points concerning this Measure. If it receives the Royal Assent, it will go far to settle one legal question which has vexed the minds of ecclesiastical and other lawyers in this country ever since the Reformation—that is, with whom precisely jurisdiction lies, in the first instance at any rate, over a Bishop thought to be guilty of some ecclesiastical offence. It has been said that it lies in the Archbishop of the Province, acting alone or with assessors. It has also been said that it lies with the Archbishop of the Province acting with certain other Bishops as fellow judges. It has also been claimed that it really resides in the Archbishop associated with all the other Bishops of the Province in the Upper House of the Convocation of the Province. Action has been taken in England since the Reformation on all three of those views, but always there has been discussion on the question whether the court to which on any particular occasion a Bishop was brought was composed in such a way as to give it the jurisdiction claimed. This Measure, which lays stress on the Archbishop 727 acting with fellow Bishops in the Convocation, would, it is felt, not necessarily solve the problem altogether, but certainly go some way to establishing an authoritative answer.
§ Again, your Lordships will notice that under the terms of the Measure no charge can be brought against a Bishop of unbecoming conduct which, in the Archbishop's judgment, involves a question of doctrinal definition. The reason why such charges are excluded from this Measure is primarily because they were excluded from the allied Measures. It is thought best that the three Measures should be, so to speak, on all fours. I say frankly that whatever distress may be caused by the expression of unorthodox doctrines, even by a Bishop, the Church of England is characteristically slow to think that the right method of dealing with the enunciation of those doctrines is by a trial, but believes rather that it should be dealt with by the better commendation by other people of what is felt to be the orthodox view which, if it does not convert the heretic, at any rate may go far to convert the public to whom he addresses himself.
§ It will be noticed that the Measure leaves a great deal to the Convocation, and in this connection it uses the word "may" rather than "shall." That is, of course, because Convocation is a very ancient body and jealous of its rights, and experience shows that it is more likely to do the right thing quickly if it is told what it may do rather than if it is told what it must do. One further point is that there is no provision in the Measure for any formal appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. That is a real change in the law. There was no such provision in either of the other Measures. Clearly, it is felt that even the members of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council assisted by ecclesiastical assessors would not necessarily be more competent than the whole bench of Bishops to say at any given moment what amounts to neglect of duty or unbecoming conduct in a Bishop. On the other hand, it will not be possible for any Bishop to be deprived of his See under this Measure without the consent of His Majesty by Order in Council. I have no further observations to make on the rest of the Measure. I am sorry to have detained your Lordships 728 for even so long a time, out of what is, perhaps, a mistaken sense of duty. I beg to move.
§ Moved to resolve, That in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act, 1919, this House do direct that the Bishops (Retirement) Measure, 1950, be presented to His Majesty for the Royal Assent.—(The Lord Bishop of Winchester.)
§ On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.