Acting Bishop of London criticised for comments on 'faffy' High Church

Bishop Broadbent
Bishop Broadbent 'will probably call a spade a shovel', according to one prominent Anglican Credit:  Eddie Mulholland

The acting Bishop of London has been criticised by senior clergy for describing the High Church tradition as “faffy ceremonial” and suggesting it lacks “deep faith”.

Bishop Pete Broadbent, bishop of Willesden, made the comments in a Facebook discussion beneath a job advertisement that referred to a church in the “modern catholic tradition”. Asked by a priest if he meant “High Church”, the bishop replied: “No … High church is faffy ceremonial without teaching the catholic faith.”

By contrast, “properly catholic” meant “they teach the faith … and inhabit the liturgy”. On Thursday he added: “High Church [as viewed] in London catholic circles tends to mean just the ceremonial without the deep faith and taught and lived experience that catholic Anglicans understand and live.”

The Anglo-Catholic Bishop of Wakefield, Tony Robinson, said the comments were “upsetting” for worshippers in the High Church tradition.

“We all need to respect each other in the Church of England,” said Bishop Robinson, “It’s not right for anyone to disrespect somebody else’s way of worshipping.”

London is the largest Church of England diocese in terms of absolute attendance and paid clergy, and is home to many parishes that identify as High Church or Anglo-Catholic. Bishop Broadbent is overseeing the running of the diocese until Bishop Sarah Mullally is installed as its first female leader on May 12. A prominent Evangelical, he is known for his informal, lively manner.

He was briefly suspended as bishop of Willesden in 2010 for comments he made on Facebook regarding the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, which he later acknowledged were “deeply offensive”.

Fr Philip Warner, Cardinal Rector of St Magnus Martyr, London Bridge, said he did not doubt that there were parishes where the ceremonial aspect of worship was “just theatre”. But he added that at St Magnus Martyr, “We would identify as High Church” while also being a place “where the catholic faith is taught”.

Fr Alan Moses, vicar of All Saints’, Margaret Street, and an area dean in the diocese of London, said of Bishop Broadbent’s remarks: “There’s an element of truth in what he says, but it’s overstated, in his usual manner. He’s given to plain-speaking; he will probably call a spade a shovel.” 

Bishop Broadbent told The Telegraph his criticism did not refer to particular parishes. “No one uses the High Church label [to describe Anglo-Catholic worship centred on the sacraments] any more, certainly not in London. The labels have moved on,” he said.

However, Simon Sarmiento, co-founder of the Thinking Anglicans blog, said: “There are people inside the Church of England who do use these labels to describe themselves.”

He added: “It’s true that the term ‘modern catholic’, for example, has come into much more widespread use in the last five years, ten years, at the expense of old-fashioned terms like ‘high church’, ‘low church’ and so forth, but they’re still in use, particularly among people of an older generation who grew up using these terms and therefore don’t lightly abandon them.”

Canon Mark Gilbert, a traditionalist priest in the diocese of Chichester, agreed that some people still identified as High Church, and defined them as those who “like lots of ceremonial, but that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with that; it’s actually capturing the mystery of God.”

Asked if high Anglicans would take offence at Bishop Broadbent’s comments he replied: “No… that’s who he is; he just sort of says things,” and suggested the bishop sometimes took to Facebook “to stir people up a bit”.

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