Dear Bishops, Registrars, Chancellors, and interested clergy and laity – dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I greet you in the precious name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who has established God’s new Covenant in his blood. Thank you for gathering for this inaugural conference of the Canon Law Council.

Special thanks to Prof. Barney for COTT’s hospitality, and to all who have worked to make this meeting possible. Please, join me in sending condolences to Dean Andrew Hunter on the passing of his father last week. Ourprayers are with you Andrew and your family at time. I am grateful to you, Matt Esau and Henry Bennett for being the inaugural planning team at last year's meeting.

There is no doubt that a good understanding of Canon Law and its right use is invaluable to the healthy life of the Church. In particular we all need to know how and where to apply and implement canon law. So my first hope is that you will work towards compiling a user- friendly manual, for the use of clergy and people. We would benefit greatly from a better grasp of when and how to resort to canonically based action. For God’s people live under grace not law: while Jesus came to fulfil the law, he was against legalism. Law makes a good servant but a poor master. St Paul also wrote about avoiding – and avoiding provoking – legislative procedures, especially in secular courts, wherever possible. Court cases should be a last resort, on spiritual, moral grounds, as well as being a terrible example to the world around, and a shameful waste of parishioners’ money. As our Morning Prayer passages so far this week, from Chapter 4 of the Letter to the Ephesians, remind us, we are those who live, and build one up, in love.

similarly, even when hard words must be shared, we must speak the truth in love and act in a godly way. This should especially be our yardstick in the fraught area of discipline. Vocational and employment matters are first a moral and then a legal question, and so I hope that we resort to this area of law as little as possible. And while the relationship between Bishops and clergy in terms of case law is not considered as one of direct employment, Bishops and the church more widely should treat clergy as well, if not better, than the best practices of any employment code. The same high, mutually respectful, standards of relationship, based on our sharing in the image of God, also go for relationships between clergy and congregations.

So, as is clear, there is plenty on the canon law plate for you to get your teeth into! May God bless your discussions – so that you, and your work, may be a blessing to God’s church and God’s people, in our ministry and mission to God’s world. Thank you.