English cathedral bans ‘bullying’ precentor for 10 years
NewsWe reported a few weeks ago that Ed Jones, director of music at Wakefield Cathedral, had been bullied out of his job by a Precentor and was seeking a new future in finance.
Early this month, the Precentor was suspended.
Today, the Church announced the following penalty on its website:
The Revd Canon JAYSON DONAL RHODES
Diocese: Leeds
Date imposed: 22nd May 2023
Relevant CDM section: 16(1)
Statutory Ground of Misconduct: s.8(1)(d): Conduct unbecoming & inappropriate to the office and work of a clerk in Holy Orders
Penalty: Removal from office & limited prohibition for 10 years with effect from 31 July 2023
This sort of thing would never have happened in St. Patrick’s Dublin when Victor Griffin was Dean. The Church of Ireland has always had a far more enlightened clergy than the Church of England. George Otto Simms was a fluent Irish and German speaker and an authority on Irish Illuminated Manuscripts.
Dr Swift at least wrote a famous documented missive to the chapter regarding the choir being used by a “club of fiddlers” in Fishamble street in 1742!
What on earth has any of this about Catholic Dublin got to do with the Church of Ireland versus the Church of England, and more so Wakefield Cathedral in the middle of West Yorkshire which has got rid of their outstanding director of music, whom I know well, and now the priest has been sacked for ten years. Should have been the other way round perhaps? A bank would behave better than this cathedral has, and now no advertising for the new director of music yet and due process to be seen to be done. Just out of interesting, not scoring points, but the CofI membership, ie Anglican, is a mere 376,000 of which 250,000 are in Northern Ireland. The membership of the Church of England, which is only in England, is 26 million along with about 5 million Catholics. The population of the whole of southern Ireland is about 5 million.
Don’t see any adverts for the vacant post and that due diligence – that one would expect – being done.