St Paul’s, 31 October 2011 The Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, the Rt Rev Graeme Knowles, announced his intention to resign from his post this afternoon. He made his decision known to the Chapter and to the Bishop of London last night and has removed himself from Cathedral operations with immediate effect. He intended to submit his resignation as Dean of St Paul’s to HM the Queen today.
In the light of the Dean’s resignation, the Chapter has unanimously voted to request the Bishop of London to assist them in providing an independent voice on the ongoing situation at St Paul’s. The Bishop has had no part to date in the discussions and decisions made by Chapter and it is felt his input is now required.
This is a drama of two parts:
The first, which we are in danger of forgetting, is that the protesters were in the process of being moved on from the Stock Exchange when they briefly collected at St Paul’s. Out came Giles Fraser without reference to or even informing the Dean whose responsibility the Cathedral is or the Chapter who share authority, and took it on himself to stop the police moving people on from doing their duty and protecting the Cathedral. Had Fraser not interjected himself, nothing more would have happened, and none of us would even have been aware of an issue at St Paul’s. Fraser then proceeded subsequently to protest the closing of the Cathedral and threatened to resign if any action was taken to move the protesters. It was disloyal of Fraser not to have consulted the Dean who ultimately has the responsiblity and now has carried the can for the consequences arising from Fraser’s unilateral and unauthorised actions.
Secondly, it is quite clear that arising from Fraser’s actions, the Cathedral were thrown into a quandry; the police on Fraser’s instructions had withdrawn, and the Cathedral authorities were left to deal with the problem on their own, without support from the wider diocese or church. As usual the ABC went to ground, and the Cathedral was left to fend for itself. There is no doubt that they panicked and have not handled the situation well. You would have thought that having made a crisis out of a drama that Fraser would have belted up, but instead he continued to grandstand in front of any camera to hand and brief against his colleagues and the Dean most disloyally in any media source he could. He then resigned having written an op-ed for a newspaper already which Damian Thompson reported he was touting round the newspapers the following morning. The Dean was left with an impossible situation, criticised by Fraser’s left wing media friends and dealing with the fallout of his attempts to deal with a worsening situation. Now the Dean has resigned and the second part of the drama has concluded. I am sorry for a man clearly broken by all this after struggling with a situation nothing in his background has prepared him for and unable to rely upon his staff for support.
The Bishop of London has now been left to clear up Fraser’s mess.
That said, I think one has to stand back from the overall day to day situation and ask some serious long term questions:
1. Can the CofE continue to operate in this widow twanky fashion, completely flumoxed by any event which arises, lacking any form of collegiality either at Deanery level or diocesan level, with no crisis management skills, central church support and resources, and few media management skills in evidence?
2. Could such situations be opportunities for witness and a Christian response? One of the criticisms being made is that the Church is not responding in accordance with what it preaches. Would less haste in making decisions, more consultation, and perhaps more support from dioceses and the wider church be appropriate? Where was the evangelism? The protesters themselves have been a rather well behaved sideshow to the Cathedral drama playing out, watching with bemusement and perplexity at the antics of the Church of England on probably for many of them, their first serious contact with it. I think we have missed a trick.
3. Do we need to look at the appointments being made more carefully. It was predictable given his past form of rebellion, disregard for his bosses and propensity for media grandstanding, that under pressure, Fraser would act as he did at St Paul’s. Fraser is a typical public school rebel [Uppingham], unused to any form of collective responsibility and unsuited to acting collegially. As Bishop Alan Wilson asked: “..are they just overgrown public schoolboys playing indoor games in their own self-important Tourist Disneyland?” His is not the only such appointment made under the Rowan Williams regime recently [needless to say Fraser is one of his pupils]. It is only a matter of time before we have another repeat performance from one of the recent diocesan appointments from the co-members/founders with Fraser of Inclusive Church. As for Fraser, no doubt Williams will push for him to be placed somewhere else he will make more trouble in due course, as night follows day.
4. Do we need to look more carefully at the extent to which Cathedrals, for all the wonderful musical, heritage, cultural and tourism provision they make, actually gear themselves up for mission, evangelism and serving the wider church and community? Are we as a Church actually making the best use of them in Christ’s service and mission?
Perhaps this debacle and continuing shambles is an opportunity as well as a problem, and a wake up call for our Cathedrals, and for ourselves to engage in some realistic soul-searching as to what we do and how we do it – I see no grounds whatever for complacency but if we are willing to engage with it, great opportunity.
“As usual the ABC went to ground…”
I wonder if that included hand-wringing, too.
I don’t always agree with everything the Bishop of London does but at least he’s usually willing to stand up and act like a leader.
This is a sad cluster-commentary on Williams’ appointments(or, at least the appointments on his watch), his authority, and his delegation of authority, or lack thereof. I’m surprised there haven’t been more calls for his resignation. Meanwhile, on this side of the pond, KJS still hasn’t commented on her reasons for allowing a known sex offender to minister in Nevada. Do you all see a pattern developing here re: leadership(or lack thereof) and the state of both Churches and the Communion?!