The recent announcement from the House of Bishops (discussed here by me and here by Ian Paul) is raising the question as to how it relates to the last Synod motion on PLF passed back in July 2024. At least one Diocesan Synod is being asked to call on the bishops to “proceed at pace in facilitating implementation of all aspects of the Living in Love and Faith motion passed by the General Synod at its July 2024 Group of Sessions, including by revising the Pastoral Guidance to remove restrictions on the use of the Prayers of Love and Faith in standalone services”. It is, therefore, worth looking at what such a request amounts to, what has happened since the motion was carried, and why proceeding as planned is no longer likely to happen (I offered a similar analysis in relation to implementation of the original February 2023 motion two years ago).

The Context of July 2024

The motion in July 2024 arose after the previous Synod in February 2024 had found agreement across its divisions that it would be better to “move to next business” rather than vote on the proposals before it. That decision was made in the context of

• The formal commendation in December 2023 of prayers for use in regular services but with Pastoral Guidance making clear their use in standalone services would require the use of canon B 2.
• The November 2023 Synod asking (by a majority of just one in the House of Laity) for consideration to be given to introducing such services experimentally.
• The appointment in November 2023 of new episcopal leadership of the process replacing the Bishop of London with the Bishops of Leicester and Newcastle, followed by the swift and sudden resignation of the Bishop of Newcastle on 1^st February 2024.

Following the February 2024 Synod, the July proposals arose out of:

• The “LLF working groups” deciding that commendation (as originally proposed and rather than B 2) should be used for standalone services but only tied to adequate, proportional pastoral provision related to new patterns of episcopal ministry,
• Those groups proposing consideration of “3 spaces in one church” to recognise the reality of the church’s situation but this being swiftly rejected by the bishops  (GS 2358, para 10).
• The July proposals were therefore seen as distorting the work of the LLF working groups by a significant number of their members as set out here.
• The Faith and Order Commission being in the process of work on various matters related to the proposals.

The July 2024 General Synod motion

Turning to the motion itself, while it made sense in its original context it is clear that much has changed since then making calls for its implementation in all aspects unworkable.

First, in relation to its clause (a), the timetable which Synod supported has proved, like so much in the selling of PLF, highly unrealistic. The work of FAOC was meant to enable a “decision by the House of Bishops in early January 2025…to be presented at the February 2025 General Synod” in relation to clergy in same-sex civil marriage. By early 2025 all that was clear was that basing such a development on “a clear distinction between holy matrimony and civil marriage” as had been proposed but widely critiqued warranted “scepticism”. It was only in October 2025 that the House received the completed work on this in the light of which they have recognised canonical and/or doctrinal changes would be required and they will bring proposals to Synod in February 2026.

Second, in relation to clause (b)(i) the request the House of Bishops “remove restrictions on the use of PLF in ‘standalone’ services” now has to take on board the detailed work of members of FAOC and the Liturgical Commission (GS Misc 1430). This

frames a series of questions that the House of Bishops will need to answer in their deliberations on how to proceed. To what degree is a liturgical text’s silence on a topic an acceptable way to indicate agreement with present teaching? What symbolic actions should be proscribed and/or prescribed to ensure the PLF cohere with the Church’s doctrine of marriage? And what level of communal authorisation is required to engender confidence that ministerial discretion in the use of the PLF will not create doctrinal plurality?

To proceed without the bishops and Synod giving these questions serious consideration would now simply repeat the flawed approach which has produced the mess we are now in.

Third, the removal of restrictions on standalone services was also explicitly tied in (b)(i) to “the introduction of an arrangement to register for Pastoral Reassurance”. The origins of this go back to a promise of the Archbishop of York to General Synod in February 2023

I want to give you this pledge that I won’t be able to vote, I won’t be able to support commending these prayers when I hope we vote this through today. But I won’t be able to support commending these prayers until we have the pastoral guidance and pastoral provision.

Although broken by him when he commended the prayers for use in regular services, this pledge linking prayers with pastoral provision (later renamed Pastoral Reassurance) was strongly supported by the LLF working groups. However, (a) the bishops were unhappy with even a relatively minor form of this (DEM, Delegated Episcopal Ministry) and (b) many who needed such reassurance believed they needed more than DEM. To demand implementation of the July 2024 motion, and in particular to introduce standalone services, is to demand the bishops embrace some form of provision/resassurance.

Fourth, related to this, although there appears to still be a plan for a Bishops’ Statement, the decision not to explore reassurance means there has now been an explicit rejection of “a Code of Practice which provides for the delegation of some specific and defined episcopal ministry” requested in clause (b)(ii). In the words of the recent statement, the bishops have “concluded there is currently no need for a new code of practice setting out special arrangements such as Delegated Episcopal Ministry”. This also means that clause (d) of the Synod motion (to agree for “arrangements for Pastoral Reassurance to be regularly monitored”) also is now not needed.

The question here is why the bishops voted to bring this proposal of DEM and a Code of Practice to Synod and voted for it at Synod and sent it out for discussion at Diocesan Synods but have now almost unanimously rejected this. Here there is no formal FAOC paper relating to this which explains this reversal. It would appear that many bishops were opposed to it but still brought it to Synod and sent it to the dioceses. This may help explain the sudden resignation of the Bishop of Leicester back in June.

Fifth, the “further theological work carried out under the auspices of the Faith and Order Commission around the nature of doctrine, particularly as it relates to the doctrine of marriage and the question of clergy in same-sex civil marriages” which Synod asked to see has now shown there are serious problems in proceeding as the bishops and Synod wanted in July 2024 (See GS Misc 1429, 1430 and 1431).

Sixth, the proposal (clause (c))  that “taken together the Pastoral Guidance, the Bishop’s [sic] Statement and Code of Practice for pastoral provision will replace Issues in Human Sexuality” has been overtaken by two developments: (a) the decision noted above not to have a Code of Practice and (b) the widespread agreement in July 2025 that, in relation to the ordination discernment process, Issues in Human Sexuality should be, in the interim, replaced by the “requirement for candidates to live in line with the Guidelines for the Professional Conduct of the Clergy”. This option was not considered in July 2024 but arose out of “the advice of the LLF working groups” called for in section (b) of that motion.

Conclusion

In summary, it is clear that the PLF process is now stuck in a very big ditch but whatever comes next there appears to be little or nothing in the July 2024 General Synod motion that is now likely to be of much help. Any call to “proceed at pace in facilitating implementation of all aspects of the Living in Love and Faith motion passed by the General Synod at its July 2024 Group of Sessions” fails to recognise what has changed since then and is not a possible way forward.