Call for next Archbishop of Wales to be a Welsh speaker
The next Archbishop of Wales should be able to speak Welsh, it has been argued.
According to Reverend Canon Enid Morgan, the person who is elected to the top job in the Church in Wales, needs to be fluent in the language.
The process for choosing the Archbishop of Wales has begun today in the town of Llandrindod Wells, just over 100 years since the first was enthroned there.
Reverend Canon Enid Morgan told BBC CymruFyw: “I don’t see how someone who isn’t a Welsh speaker can do it – without communicating directly with the Welsh speaking world.
“I would say that they have to be fluent in Welsh – but we haven’t had that recently.”
She argued that throughout the Church in Wales has been “committed to promoting a bilingual church”.
‘Candidates’
The candidates are the Bishop of Bangor, Andy John, the Bishop of St Asaph, Gregory Cameron, the Bishop of St Davids, Joanna Penberthy, the Bishop of Llandaff, June Osborne, the Bishop of Monmouth, Cherry Vann, and the Bishop of Swansea and Brecon, John Lomas.
The 42 members of the Electoral College will have three days to make a decision. To be elected Archbishop a nominee must win two-thirds of the votes of the college
Usually the candidate with the fewest votes will withdraw if there is no clear winner, and then the process is repeated.
If the college fails to choose within three days the decision passes to the Bench of Bishops.
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Preferably Welsh, Aramaic, Koine Greek, and a smattering of Hebrew – Saesneg also an advantage.
Ermm, Wales doesn’t really have an ‘Archbishop’ does it. It doesn’t have an established church since the 1920’s. The person to be appointed here will be leader of the Anglican community in Wales. Just like the RC Archbishop of England and Wales is leader of the Catholic community in Wales.
What has being an archbishop got to do with being part of an established church? RC archbishops (more than one of them in England and Wales btw) are not.
Read my post David. The leader appointed here will of course be archbishop of the Anglican communion in Wales. But he will not be the ‘Archbishop of Wales’. Wales has no state religion or church. The Anglican claim to that position was put aside when the Anglican church in Wales was disestablished on the 31st of March 1920. England has a state religion. Wales does not.
Considering that the church played such a large part in preserving the Welsh language I would have thought that it would be part of the job
It would be a good thing if the Church in Wales used more Welsh