5th March 2010

A Chaplain’s Diary

 

Just a moment

 

Emotional roller-coaster

This is such a strange job and I’m surprised that I’m not more of an emotional mess than I actually am.  One moment I’m laughing and joking with a wedding couple as they plan their marriage service, the next I’m fighting off the tears as I help a bereaved family organise a funeral service.  Then as the bereaved family leave from one door another couple are arriving through the other church door to celebrate their 25^th wedding anniversary and renew their vows before we pop a cork to toast their health.  Even today, ten minutes after conducting a funeral at Bon Sosec Crematorium, which for some people present will been one of the most traumatic and saddest moments of their lives, I am casually wandering around Leroy Merlins at Al Campo buying light bulbs whilst they are possibly still agonising over which urn to choose.  It’s an emotional roller-coaster I can tell you, in fact I’m not surprised that some clergy are driven to the occasional large brandy or two.

 

Self righteous vicar

I wasn’t going to tell you this but I did honestly once try to give up booze for Lent. I failed completely so I was really glad when Easter Day finally arrived.  To say that giving up drink is not my forte is rather like suggesting that sensitivity is not the best-remembered attribute of Attila the Hun.  Every Lent, I try it, and almost every year I come a cropper.  The most hopeless attempt was a few years ago.  Having duly conducted a Holy Communion Service on Ash Wednesday at 11am, by 4pm I’d shamefully fallen from grace with a large glass of brandy.  Why?  Well, it was at a “do” after a funeral and there were three excellent excuses – sorry, I mean reasons.  First we had been celebrating the life of someone who’d lived to a ripe old age and it would have been churlish and insensitive not to raise a glass to the memory of the deceased, second, I hate the image of the self righteous vicar (“Brandy, Vicar?” Vicar: “No, no I couldn’t possibly, I’ve given it up for Lent.”)  But to be honest the real reason was the third. It was a cold horrible day and the cemetery had been freezing, and I needed a brandy.  I could pretend that the spirit was willing but the flesh was weak.  But the truth is that the spirit was dragging its feet, and the flesh had not just admitted defeat, but was on its back with its legs in the air!

 

It’s about time

So, it seems that we’re probably going to be having women bishops. A few years ago the General Synod of the Church of England  decided that women can become bishops. “Whoopee” say I “and about time too”. It’s not exactly going to happen tomorrow and I suspect it will be 8 or 9 years before we see a woman bishop swanning down the aisle in her cope and mitre but at least the process has started. As with many things in the Church of England it’s going to take an age but at least the legal process has started. I was quite surprised to see that the vote authorising this step forward was passed with such large majorities. 13 years ago the vote to allow women priests was a real cliffhanger and many of us thought that we were destined to endure a “male only” priesthood for the rest of our lives. Today over 2,500 women have become priests in the Church of England and nearly half of those in training are now women. In moving into the 21^st century the Church of England is joining 14 other parts of the Anglican Communion where they already have women bishops in Canada, New Zealand and the United States.

 

Superficial reading

Women bishops will be good for us. If the leadership roles in the Christian Church are all male it might be seen as an indication that women are not equal to men in the sight of God. To most people looking at the church, this might also raise questions as to the calibre of its leadership. Are we being led by the best possible person or simply by the best possible man? Those arguing against what appears a natural development to most of us have a number of reasons they wheel out with some regularity. The first is that the Bible on a superficial reading of the text appears to say that women should not have authority over men. They believe God created the world in such a way that men should have ultimate authority. Well it’s one view – but its not one that is shared by my wife - or for once by myself either. The Bible was written in a highly patriarchal society where women were very second rate citizens so is it surprising that its male writers should come up with such a sociologically conditioned outlook?

 

A long wait

A second group believes that the Church of England is part of the worldwide church and shouldn’t appoint women unilaterally. They believe that we should wait for the other great churches such as the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church to make their decisions rather than making the decision alone. Though we did have the guts to allow our clergy to marry which none of my Roman Catholic colleagues can do .I think if we were to go down that road and wait for the others to catch up, we could be waiting a very long time indeed. And if either of those two churches did make the decision I rather suspect they wouldn’t bother consulting us. A third group claims that Jesus only selected men as his disciples and we are bound to keep up that tradition. But they never bother to point out that not only were they men but also Jewish as well and from a quite specific tiny, Middle Eastern country. I’m sure that no one in their right mind today would want to insist that all Church of England clergy should not only be male but also Jewish and from Israel!

 

Slowly getting there

At present the Church of England only has five women archdeacons and two deans but we’re slowly getting there. I was the Church of England press officer on duty responsible for running the press conference when the first woman dean was appointed to Leicester Cathedral. The press and photographers turned out in force. Every regional television news programme wanted her on “live” and we drove around like demented people from one local radio station to another because it was a “first”. Both she and the Bishop were very excited about the coverage we got. There was a photograph in almost every daily national newspaper and we even managed to get coverage on national news. I wasn’t so elated. How can it be good publicity to announce the fact that for the first time in the Church of England - women were being treated the equal of men? In the 21^st century!

 

Covert opposition

Every woman in a senior position in the church faces opposition. It tends to be covert. They don’t often get rude things said to their face but they do get people writing letters, often anonymously, attacking their wish to be treated as fully human. Those sent to the press are often not abusive but just discriminatory. Yet women clergy see the discrimination suffered by other groups of women and know that the Church of England is not too different from the rest of society.  I believe that congregations are longing for change. They’re familiar with the idea of women priests from programmes such as the “Vicar of Dibley” and “The Archers”. The script for the “Vicar of Dibley” reflected the best of the clergy; it’s approachability and lovability. It laughed with the Vicar, not at her and not because she was a woman.

 

Dangly earrings

There are now women Lord Lieutenants, High Sheriffs, Lord Mayors and Prime Ministers and the Church of England is slowly getting there. Of course there are still taboos about what women priests should wear and look like. They don’t want to look too butch but not many have the confidence to wear dangly earrings, nail varnish or high heels and certainly not anything slightly sexy. As with other female professionals most of them dress conservatively because they don’t want to draw attention to their gender and so play it terribly safe so as not to risk rejection. The UK has now had nearly thirty years of equal opportunities legislation and I used to find it odd that when I employed secular staff I had to obey that law but when I appointed an assistant chaplain in Puerto Pollensa, five years ago, I was allowed to discriminate. It is a double world and one, which makes many people think that the church is out of touch. Yet interestingly when we discussed the matter at a recent Church Council, here at the Anglican Church in Palma, they agreed unanimously that women’s ministry and women priests were acceptable in our own church.

 

Pull your finger out

A few years ago we had a woman priest on the staff here as part of her in-service training. Everyone that saw her at work took her to their hearts and I certainly learnt a trick or two from her. Women have the ability to push buttons that we men can’t begin to recognise. People talked to her that have never talked to me and for once it felt as though we had got a fully and properly rounded team of staff. I remember another woman - our then newly licensed parish assistant conducted her first funeral. I sat in the congregation to give her some support and so that we could use it as a training opportunity afterwards. I was astonished at the way she performed. She used the same readings, the same words and the same music but they had a totally different meaning and feeling coming from a woman. I would not have believed the difference it made. So come on Church of England, pull your socks up, pull your finger out and get on with it. We can’t afford to wait any longer.

 

Fr Robert Ellis is the Anglican Chaplain of Mallorca

St Philip and St James Church

Calle Nunez de Balboa 6,

Son Armadans, Palma 07014

Tel: 971 737279

e-mail:anglicanpalma@gmail.com

www.anglican-mallorca.org