accountability,anglican communion,deployment,discernment,liturgical,prayer,sacramental,safeguarding,sexuality,the society

The Revd Dr James Hadley

Nominators
The Revd Canon David Wright
The Revd Canon Joanna Udal

Chaplain
All Saints’, Milan
Ascension, Cadenabbia

Bishop’s Council & Diocesan Trustee, Diocesan Synod | Secretary, Associazione Chiesa
d’Inghilterra in Italia | Treasurer, Archdeaconry Synod | Member, International Anglican
Liturgical Consultation (IALC)
A Church with confidence
I love the Church of England. I am standing because I believe the next General Synod
needs to help the Church recover its confidence in its common life: the life we share
in Christ, across difference and across very different places.
I am not standing simply with a list of things I promise to vote for. Below I tell you how I think
about our common life. General Synod is a place of ecclesial discernment and a shaper of
ministry: gathering the Church in worship and prayer, reading the signs of the times, and
shaping the ministry, structures and law by which we all together, lay and ordained, embody
life in Christ.
My vocation has been shaped by different parts of the Anglican Communion. Formed in the
Episcopal Church and the Church of Ireland, I came to Rome, where I began training for
priesthood in the Church of England, and have since served in England, Palermo and Milan.
I know something of how our Church works — and where it does not. I value
institutions enough to want them to work, and would bring that practical experience to
Synod. I am also willing to do the work: to serve on committees, read the papers, listen
carefully and contribute constructively to the life of Synod.
Unity without uniformity
Unity does not require uniformity. The Diocese in Europe has taught me that. Across
more than thirty countries, the Diocese in Europe embodies the Church of England in very
different legal, cultural and pastoral circumstances. Europe is not an exception to our
ecclesiology, but a test case for it: how do we remain one Church while allowing ministry
to take the form that place, people and circumstance require? That experience is part of the
common life of the Church of England, and I would bring it to General Synod.
Presence, not acreage
I want to see local ministry strengthened by the wider Church. The fundamental unit of
ministry is the Christian community gathered by the Spirit to live in Christ. The wider Church
exists to serve and strengthen that local life, not to replace it.

Central resources should enable ministry locally: supporting priests, worship, buildings and
the basic life of congregations, while also funding programmes that genuinely require the
wider Church.
Deployment of funds for local ministry should be a priority. The test should be
whether funds strengthen ministry rather than simply sustain or add structures. This
is the principle I would apply to decisions about funding, buildings and deployment. Difficult
choices will be necessary. I was formed in a rural church and know that we cannot preserve
every inherited arrangement indefinitely. Ministry is about presence, not acreage.
The vocation of ministry
I am concerned, too, about clergy. We should
expect high standards, and we need strong
safeguarding and accountability at the heart
of the Church. At the same time, the starting
point for ordained ministry must be the Ordinal:
prayer, preaching, teaching, sacramental ministry
and pastoral care. Our structures should support
the vocation of ministry, not define it. The best
advertisement for priesthood is a priest who
is glad to be a priest.
The foundation of trust
Trust is about people, not processes. Good
processes matter: they give clarity, consistency
and protection. But they cannot, by themselves,
create a trustworthy Church. We need institutions
capable of exercising authority well: accountable,
competent, humane and willing to listen.
Trust is tested most seriously when we disagree. Our disagreements matter, but they
cannot be allowed to become the whole story of the Church. Synod should be a place where
disagreement is metabolised rather than weaponised. On questions of sexuality and gender,
I want us to find ways forward that are pastorally honest, theologically grounded and capable
of holding the Church together. I believe we can hold genuine theological differences without
making difference itself a reason for separation. The temptation to turn every difference
into another institutional boundary is strong. We should resist it.
Why the Church exists
Above all, I want a Church that knows why it exists. Worship and preaching are our front
door. We need to form Christians, welcome children and families, serve our communities,
use technology intelligently and speak a credible word of hope to the society around us.
I love this Church. I want it to flourish. And I would be glad to serve it in General
Synod.

[email protected] | +39 345 424 1973 | cofeitaly.org