AB Aspinal (Ret ?) Brisbane ex-Primate on Episcopal Standards. CS 52 Day x
ARCHBISHOP ASPINALL: Well, we’ve had several attempts, two or three attempts in my time as Primate, to put in place uniform episcopal standards legislation. There do need to be grievance processes or complaints processes, where people in a diocese can say, “My bishop is acting unfairly.” The difficulty is that you then provide an avenue for a whole lot of vexatious and trivial complaints, and we haven’t found a way yet, really, to strike that balance and to get in place uniform standards.
One key issue is that – there is quite a body of feeling in the church that bishops must be held accountable by a body external to their own diocese; the accountability
has to be held that way, cause most of the key people within a diocese are either personally known to the bishop, so there are conflicts of interest or have been appointed by the bishop, so there are conflicts of interest. So there needs to be an external body.
But there are others in the church who say there is no way we are going to give an external body power over our bishop. So we have this impasse, really, which has prevented the implementation of a uniform episcopal standards regime.
( Note Transcript Pg to be added ).
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