THE Bench of Bishops of the Church in Wales has chosen the Dean of Salisbury, the Very Revd June Osborne, to be the next Bishop of Llandaff.

Dean Osborne’s appointment was announced on Thursday of last week, two months after the decision fell to the Bench because no candidate had secured a two-thirds majority in the Electoral College for the see, and after protests that the Dean of St Albans, the Very Revd Dr Jeffrey John, who had had the unanimous support of the dio­­cesan representatives, had not been appointed. The Bench stated that it would not consider any of the names that had been on the college’s slate.

Dean Osborne, 63, who has been in her current post for 13 years, was one of the first women to be or­­dained in the Church of England. She said that her task in the diocese of Llandaff, which covers Cardiff and the South Wales valleys, would be “challeng­ing” but also a “great privilege”. The diocese includes a concentra­tion of the Church in Wales’s traditionalist Anglo-Catholic parishes.

Shortly after the Electoral College failed to agree on a can­­didate, Dr John complained that he had been blocked from being chosen as the Bishop-Elect because he was in a civil partnership. In a reply to a letter from the Bishop of Swansea & Brecon, the Rt Revd John Davies, who had privately assured him that his sexuality was no bar to being appointed, Dr John accused the Bishops of “anti-gay discrimination” (News, 24 March).

“I’m very aware there is hurt and disappointment for some that the electoral college did not produce the result, but for me the outcome of this discernment has been thril­­­­­ling,” Dean Osborne said.

There was work to do in healing division within the Llandaff dio­cese, she acknowledged. “I do want to be a bishop for absolutely every­body, [in­cluding] those who might have wish­­ed for another candidate.”

Dean Osborne declined to com­ment on the specifics of the row over the alleged homophobia, say­ing that she had no idea what had really happened behind the locked doors of the Electoral College, and neither had anyone else. But she was not concerned that she would be seen as an outsider imposed on the diocese.

“What I’m confident of is that people in the Llandaff diocese will be enormously generous to my ministry. Processes sometimes don’t produce the result we hope for, and it takes time to acclimatise to that fact. I have con­­fidence that I am going to get a warm welcome.”

Dean Osborne said that she counted Dr John as a friend, as well as a fellow dean, and that she had seen him as recently as Monday of last week at a meeting. “I think what exchanges there are between Jeffrey and I will stay private,” she said. “I have huge respect for Jeffrey: he is an extra­ordinary priest and a much loved dean.”

Bishop Davies, the most senior bishop in the Church in Wales, said that Dean Osborne would “richly bless” both the diocese of Llandaff and the wider Church.

“She is known as a leader with clear vision, a pastoral heart, and a strategic mind, all of which com­mend the Church to the wider com­­munity,” he said. “In this way, and through her teaching, her preach­­ing, and her leadership, she reveals herself to be someone who, I am confident, will provide for the diocese of Llandaff excellence in leadership and oversight.”

It was very good news for the Church in Wales that one third of its six bishops would soon be wo­­men, Dean Osborne said. It had been “exhilarating” for her gener­ation to see sweeping social change, which had been so long desired, take place in the Church over a relatively short space of time.