Church of England (Women Bishops)

Debate between Geoffrey Cox and Susan Elan Jones

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon) (Con)]

Having listened to the right hon. Members for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) and for Birkenhead (Mr Field) and my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), and having heard before from my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry), I am filled with envy. I feel a little like the boy with his nose pressed against the pie shop window, looking inside at the good things within and feeling very excluded. I do not think that the right hon. Member for Exeter and those who have spoken in his support understand how fortunate they are. For them a decision on the issue—which has now confronted the Church for a number of decades—as to the acceptability, doctrinally and theologically, of women priests and women bishops is so obviously, decisively and clearly reached on one side.

They are extraordinarily fortunate to be able to reach a conclusion of such a decided kind, because some of us cannot do so, even after very careful and patient reflection. I fully respect the conclusion and the sincerity of the right hon. Member for Exeter, having listened to him today, and I ask him to accept that some of us cannot reach the same conclusion with the same decisive finality. Those of us who read the Bible and listen to what ancient texts say and hear the words of the Roman Catholic Church find it hard to conclude that the steps the Anglican Church has taken over recent decades are necessarily the right ones.

I know that the sentiments I express today are shared by many. I have received letters from people who feel the same way. Many of us also acknowledge that the decision taken some years ago to admit women priests to the Anglican Church is irreversible and the march of relentless logic will probably mean there should also be women bishops. However, that minority of whom the right hon. Gentleman spoke so critically includes many people of sincere Christian faith who wrestle daily with their consciences on this issue, and who appreciate with humility that there are hundreds or thousands—or possibly tens of thousands—represented on these Benches here today who have reached a contrary conclusion to that which their own conflict on this subject leads them to reach, and who feel that this is a matter so free from intellectual difficulty that they can reach such a conclusion.

In the presence of that, this minority feel some sense of humility but simply cannot bring themselves to dismiss the tradition of 2,000 years, the convictions of the Roman Catholic Church and the convictions of many millions of people around the world with the ease and facility that the right hon. Gentleman does. That they feel sincerely, I ask him to accept.

The right hon. Gentleman was critical, probably rightly, of the fact that when people divide into the trenches, as they have on this issue, mistrust breaks out. He expressed concern that the negotiating position of the conservative wing of the Church is not held sincerely and these people do not wish to reach a conclusion. I can talk only about the letters I have received from the laity in the rural areas I represent. Many of them agreed with the position that he takes, but some did not. Those letters do not resonate with entrenched obstructionism; they seek a way forward. They sound with a sense of authentic pain. They are from people trying to grapple with an issue on which they realise they are in the minority, and they are seeking a way forward. It will test the leadership—

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Cox]

Not just now. It will test the leadership of the Church, and I hope that this new leader of the Church is the God-sent thing he appears to be. I hope that he will be able to bring along the minority, among whose number I count myself, because the last thing that that minority wishes to do is see the Church they love riven by this issue. I therefore ask the right hon. Gentleman, and others in the House who, understandably, support so passionately their view, to entertain Christian compassion for the minority, who do not seem to have much of a voice in the debate today, nor had much of a voice in the statement the other day.