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Confirmation reform: next step Australia
By Madeleine Collins
Anglican Media Sydney
October 19, 2005
In a historic move last night, Sydney Anglicans have endorsed a proposal that confirmation no longer be required of people who are baptised as adults before being allowed to take Communion.
Getting the Synod on board was stage one before ‘wooing Australia’ with the proposals, said mover of the motion, the Bishop of North Sydney Dr Glenn Davies, chairman of the seven-member committee who prepared the report.
“I’m pleased that the Synod recognises this is a reform we really desire,” Dr Davies told Sydney Anglicans.net. “It is a sensible, biblical and commonsense move…and I have every confidence in convincing the House of Bishops this is a sensible way forward.”
The four-part motion, ‘Administer of confirmation by presbyters’ was approved after vigorous debate and six years after it was first proposed.
The Synod also agreed that priests and deacons, under license from the Archbishop, should be allowed to confirm members of their congregations and that senior lay people should be involved in the preparation of candidates.
The move would bring the Anglican Church in line with the Catholic, Lutheran and Greek Orthodox Churches.
The Standing Committee will either bring an ordinance to the forthcoming General Synod or promote a Canon that will make the proposals possible.
Dr Davies said the crucial point was that confirmation should no longer be required of people who are baptised as adults, which ‘has always been an uncertainty in our Diocese’.
Most of the criticism, however, centred on the proposal to allow clergy to administer the rite.
Unlike the sacrament of baptism, only Bishops can legally administer the rite of confirmation in the worldwide Anglican Communion, with the exception of the Church of India, which allowed priests to administer the rite in 1976.
Some opponents of the motion argued for the ‘special’ nature being confirmed by the visiting bishop, while others countered the move was ‘un-Anglican’.
The Rev Mark Calder, rector of St Andrew’s, Roseville, argued that allowing clergy into a domain preserved for bishops ‘served no practical or pastoral need’ and was a ‘provocative move about a non-gospel matter’ that will further isolate Sydney Diocese from the rest of the country.
“[We will] become so un-Anglican to render ourselves incompatible,” Mr Calder said. “The more lines in the sand we draw, the less useful we will be.”
Dr Davies refuted the claims, saying the proposals do not remove the bishops from confirmation but does address the anomaly of adults who are baptised ‘having to wait for the completion of a rite to take part in the Lord’s Supper’.
Confirmation is a public faith commitment ceremony for adult members of the Church. It is seen as a special occasion and a key evangelistic opportunity in which to invite friends and family.
Deaconess Margaret Rodgers seconded the motion, arguing that allowing clergy to administer confirmation ‘is not some wild innovation’ but is built into Reformation doctrine.
“Some will say ‘this is not Anglican’,” Deaconess Rodgers said. “But it can be legitimate and is part of the practise of other parts of Christendom.”
She stressed the importance of lay people are involved in the most important part of confirmation, the preparation of candidates.
In July the Standing Committee gave approval for one its most senior members, Justice Peter Young, to share copies of the report with the Church Law Commission.
Moore College theologian, the Rev Dr Robert Doyle and rector of St Paul’s, Carlingford the Rev Bruce Hall wrote a minority report arguing for the full involvement of senior lay people in the rite.
Dr Davies said the General Synod would never agree to this and getting the other 23 Dioceses on-side was crucial to the proposals going ahead.
END
