An Obadiah Slope Column
Peter Catt was pleasantly surprised at General Synod: The Very Rev’d Dr Peter Catt, Dean of St Johns Cathedral in Brisbane has found himself writing approvingly of the atmosphere of the Anglican national church parliament – despite it being dominated by evangelicals, of which he is not one.
“The 2026 General Synod was my seventh. Each of them has had its own feel. This one was one of the better ones,” Catt wrote on the NCAN Australia Facebook page. NCAN stands for the National Comprehensive Anglican Network, which links mostly the left hand side of the Anglicans
“Before the event I honestly did not think I would be saying such a thing at the end. This is because this Synod was the one for which I felt least prepared. In large measure I felt this way because one of the more active ‘shop stewards’ of ‘team progressive’ did not nominate for election to this year’s Synod leaving us with a huge gap in our organisational capacity. As a result much of the organization that did take place occurred late in the piece…
“So, what gave this synod its ‘better’ feel? My short answer is that I experienced it as being characterised by a greater sense of dialogue and collaboration, with elements of the collaborative effort coming from unexpected quarters.
“Because we had not done a great deal of preparation as a group beforehand, one of the only ways available to us to influence the wording of motions was to approach the mover and seconded directly. Those of us who did this found a surprising openness to our input, with many motions being reworked and movers paying tribute to the contributions made by our group.
“Even the motion, amended following negotiation from ‘welcoming’ to ‘noting’ the publication of A True and Lively Faith [an NCAN book], benefited from the new spirit of collaboration. I noticed that the book was purchased by quite a number from ‘the other side’, and from conversations I had, this was not done only from a ‘know your enemy’ perspective.”
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How that sausage was made: Here is the mark up of the amendment to the motion welcoming the NCAN book showing in green the new wording.
They were friendly amendments as Catt notes. Nigel Fortescue is Senior Minister at Christ Church, St Ives, a significant church on Sydney’s North Shore line.
This pairing of progressives and evangelicals happened a lot at the General Synod. It may surprise Dr catt, but it greatly reminded Obadiah of the Sydney Synod, where he has seen motions from left delegates expertly wordsmithed by experienced evangelical leaders to sail through.
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Collect-tive memory: Obadiah is not familiar with the collects (prayers) in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. But a motion based on one of them caused great consternation at the General Synod – and if there was a blooper reel for that gathering it would have been the lead item.
And the motion – well it asked the synod to agree with the words in the collect:
O Merciful God, who has made all men, and hatest nothing that thou hast made, nor desirest the death of a sinner, but rather that he should be converted and live: Have mercy upon all Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Hereticks, and take from them all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of thy Word; and so fetch them home, blessed Lord, to thy flock, that they may be saved among the remnant of the true Israelites, and be made one fold under one shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.
with a clause that said we should lobby the government if the Turks, Infidels, and Hereticks “formed blocks” within our society to deal with them.
Interestingly enough Obadiah remembers the motion only mentioning Turks, Infidels, and Hereticks. Not Jews. But he might be wrong.
The Synod seethed. The left was boiling and the right was embarrassed. And senior people from the mover’s diocese (Sydney) were lobbied and the mover withdrew it during the finance section.
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