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How 1950s law change averted crisis in Anglican Communion
By Charles Moore Gordon Rayner, chief reporter
The Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
April 8, 2016
The discovery that the Archbishop of Canterbury had been born illegitimately caused a certain amount of anxiety among his staff, who worried that if a bishop was of illegitimate birth his consecration would, according to canon law, be invalid.
Had that been the case, it would have meant that Justin Welby would never, in the eyes of the Church, have been a bishop at all, and, therefore, not an archbishop either. All his acts in that role would thus have been nullified, precipitating a crisis in the Anglican Communion.
There was a time when that would have been the case, but Lambeth's legal experts were quickly able to establish that the old rule against illegitimacy had been abolished in the Fifties.
The Church of England's canon law had been largely unchanged since 1604. That was the year when the Convocation of Canterbury approved the Book of Canons, written in Latin, which had governed the Church of England ever since.
Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1945 to 1961, spent a considerable amount of energy during his time at Lambeth Palace revising the laws.
Archbishop Fisher is now remembered for presiding over both the wedding and the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, but within the Church he is known as a great reformer.
Among the laws he updated was the rule that bishops had to be born in wedlock.
The canon laws of the Church of England now state, in Section C.2.4 that:
"No person shall be refused consecration as bishop on the grounds that he was born out of lawful wedlock."
Archbishop Fisher's work was carried out in conjunction with a Canon Law Commission, established in 1939 to review the 151 canons, which sat for eight sessions between 1943 and 1947.
By 1969 the Church of England Convocation had formally adopted an entirely new set of canons, based on recommendations made by the earlier Commission.
In his statement about the discovery of his true paternity, Archbishop Welby makes reference to his enthronement, pointing out that his discovery of his illegitimacy has not changed anything.
He recalls the moment he carried out the ancient tradition of knocking on the door of Canterbury Cathedral, and how he responded to the question of why he wanted to enter.
His response was: "I am Justin, a servant of Jesus Christ, and I come as one seeking the grace of God to travel with you in his service together."
He adds: "What has changed? Nothing!"
