Anthony Smith

The constitutional amendment which needs to be made here is that any PM not in communion with the Church of England ought to transfer their responsibility in the appointment of Bishops to the Lord Chancellor (or another senior minister who is in communion). If you want to disestablish the Church of England, please say so. But until then, this “antiquated and archaic anomaly” preserves the Protestant Settlement of the Established Church. Gordon Brown’s reforms greatly diminished the role of a PM in advising the King on the appointment of Bishops, but the Royal Prerogative exists still, and the power to choose Bishops could be restored to No10 (Reform and the Conservatives will do so). It is a mistake to think this is some minor ‘correction’ of an otiose anachronism. The official position of the Roman Catholic Church is that the Church of England is not even a church in the proper sense, but merely an ‘ecclesial community’. That isn’t unimportant. Will a Roman Catholic PM recommend that Anglo-Catholic or socially conservative Bishops be advanced, and fewer Low Church or liberal Bishops? The questions arising from this proposed change are neither ecclesiologically nor theologically insignificant. But I don't think @andyburnham quite appreciates the complexity of this.