Censure motion against Dean fails
A proposed censure motion against Dean Phillip Jensen, in reference to comments published in the Weekly Cathedral Courier Newsletter, was unanimously defeated at Synod. The proposed motion, moved by Deirdre MacPherson from St John’s, Glebe, was critical of the Dean’s comments on women’s ordination. In his column to members of the Cathedral congregation on October 12, Dean Jensen wrote: “For a long time there was a common ministry but the ordination of women to the priesthood and the consecration of women to the episcopacy mean that there is no longer a commonly respected and received ministry.”

Indigenous ministry funding clarified
In response to a question asked at Synod on 13 October regarding funding of the Sydney Anglican Indigenous Peoples’ Ministry Trust Fund, the answer provided to the house could have been taken to imply that significant funding (other than that provided by the Diocese) came from CMS and ABM. Tom Mayne from the Sydney Anglican Indigenous People’s Ministry Committee clarified that ‘no request by the Committee has ever been made to either CMS or ABM’, and no funding whatsoever has been received from them.