House of Bishops’ response to See of Sheffield review

February 8, 2018

On 6 February, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York announced the formal response from the House of Bishops to Sir Philip Mawer’s independent review into the nomination to the See of Sheffield.

The House of Bishops “whole-heartedly” accepted all four of the review’s recommendations. It noted that insufficient had been done to inform and educate clergy and laity about the 2014 settlement and the effect of the House of Bishops’ Declaration within it: it had therefore established an Implementation and Dialogue Group, chaired by the Bishop of Rochester.

In his third recommendation, Sir Philip had invited the Faith and Order Commission to ‘examine the theological challenge which has been posed to the 2014 Settlement’. Accordingly, the Commission had published The Five Guiding Principles: A Resource for Study online: it would be available in print from Church House Publishing later in the month. Work had also begun in response to Sir Philip’s recommendation that the Secretary General should review the lessons to be learned from the nomination process, ‘addressing in particular how the national Church institutions support the nomination process, and the nominee for a see’.

The Archbishops also announced that, as Sir Philip’s term of office drew to a close, Sir William Fittall would succeed him as Independent Reviewer from February 2018.