Empty seats at Diocesan Synod as Truro's Bishops nod through ten-year 'reform' plan
The alarmingly thin Lay representation in the Church of England in Cornwall was never more evident than on Saturday (20/05/2023) at Truro’s Diocesan Synod when the Bishops’ ten-year Plan for Change and Renewal was ‘noted’ despite brave voices of concern. Shockingly, senior clergy have allowed just over a third of Lay seats on the Synod to remain vacant: out of a total 55 possible lay representatives, only 35 (63%) are occupied. Yet these are the supposed “voice of the congregations” and allowed to fall silent. So it was predictable that after debate, with the thin lay presence as usual dominated by the Bishops’ supporters, the Synod at St Martins Church in Liskeard agreed to “note" the plan and nod it through – 42 in favour, three against and no abstentions, Vivian Hall, a member of the General Synod but also a Trigg Major deanery synod member, led a Lay resistance. He proposed an amendment which sought to dismiss the original motion proposed by the Bishop of Truro, the Rt Rev Ph