Why C of E bishops are so bland

Nolo episcopari. These were the words a person was expected to say on being offered an episcopal see. It basically translates as ‘Don’t bishop me!’ and goes back to at least St Ambrose, who so wanted to avoid being made a bishop that he skipped town.

The Church of England has worked itself into a new position, Nemo episcopari: nobody will be bishoped. In the past year, the process for appointing new bishops to Ely and Carlisle fell apart as the Crown Nominations Commission (CNC) decided not to appoint any of the shortlisted candidates.

This has created a sense of crisis in the Church, and an emergency meeting of the House of Bishops was held after a report was hastily drafted by the Bishop of London. It’s not a bad report as far as it goes (although the proposal to give the archbishops two votes to break a deadlock isn’t the most subtle attempt at centralising power that I’ve seen).