A REPORT considering the future of ministry training in the
Church in Wales has recommended the closure of the Province's only
theological college.
It proposes that St Michael's College, Llandaff, would close in
2016. Training for ordinands and lay ministers would be provided
across Wales through a non-residential Theological Education
Institution (TEI); and ordinands selected for full-time training
would go to an English theological college.
The report estimates that the TEI would cost £565,000 a year.
The bulk of that sum would cover the employment of a provincial
Principal, and of six nationally funded diocese-based Directors of
Study.
The main source of funding would come from the closure of the
college, which, it says, could be turned into a conference centre,
and the base for a new national theological library, St
Teilo's.
"The proposals meet head-on the regional challenges of the
management of ministry training, and offer a flexibility of
approaches to ministry formation and training for the future," the
authors of the report say. "The appointment of six diocesan
Directors of Studies as part of the TEI will allow dioceses to own
the training programme, and give them the flexibility to respond to
local needs, and experiment with different forms of ministry and
its training methods."
The Principal of St Michael's, Canon Peter Sedgwick, will retire
in June. The report says that his post should remain vacant, as
part ofthe transition to the new way of working.
"We have begun to formulate our own contribution to this
discussion, and we expect to be able to presenta proposal that will
be creative, effective, inspiring, and affordable," Canon Sedgwick
said. "We are very much in the process of consulting with people
about the future of ministry in the province at a whole."
He described the proposed closure of St Michael's as a
"disaster" for the Church's attempts to increase and develop the
use of the Welsh language in its mission and ministry. "While I can
see that [non-residential training in parish groups] has great
advantages, I think it is going to be very hard for people training
through parish groups to learn the Welsh language; and those going
to England will lose the whole aspect of Welsh identity.
"All our services have prayers in Welsh. That doesn't exclude
people from England, because we don't speak Welsh all the time, but
it does mean that we are very much part of the Welsh culture and
identity. We work on that. All students learn Welsh on Wednesday
afternoons."
The college currently has about 20 part-time and 18 full-time
pre-ordination students, including one from an English diocese,
Ely. If the college closed in 2016, students starting in September
on a two-year course would be able complete their studies.
Three-year students would have to transfer to an English college
for their final year.
St Michael's College includes the Centre for Chaplaincy Studies,
which provides a distance-learning and part-time residential
Masters course for 50 chaplains serving schools, hospitals,
prisons, and the military. The report proposes transferring this to
Cardiff University.
St Michael's was an independent college until 2010, when it
merged with the Church in Wales; which then spent more than £1
million on renovations (News, 23 April 2010).
"Looking to the future, it is self-evidently crucial for the
Church in Wales that we have in place arrangements for training and
formation which reflect our current perception of the roles of all
those engaged in public ministry in the future," the Archbishop of
Wales, Dr Barry Morgan, said in a letter setting out a consultation
process on the report's proposals.
"At the same time, I and the other bishops are very conscious
that a review of this kind is unsettling for all those who are
potentially affected by it."
The consultation period closes on 30 May, and the report will
then be discussed by the Bench of Bishops at their meeting in
June.