Church Times published an article on a Church of England report today exploring the wellbeing of disabled and neurodivergent clergy. The opening line speaks of “encouraging steps” towards inclusion. The irony isn’t lost on me. Even the metaphor reveals how deeply ablest language is embedded in our culture.
Let alone terms in the article like “physical impairment” that reveal a worldview that frames disabled clergy as deviations, manageable problems, and assessable risks. The Church cannot claim progress while its structures, language, and processes remain shaped by ableism.
I’m not “physically impaired,” or “a risk.” I use a power chair and other aids. That doesn’t make me impaired. It makes me, me. Where I am weak, I am strong elsewhere.
It’s a battle changing this mentality when the Church’s legal framework still includes the C4.3 Faculty clause, which states:
“3. No person shall be admitted into holy orders who is suffering, or who has suffered, from any physical or mental infirmity which in the opinion of the bishop will prevent him from ministering the word and sacraments or from performing the other duties of the minister's office.”
It should be simple. This doesn’t represent me, but I’ll still be judged by it anyway.
Canon Law was written in 1604. The C4 additions in 1991. In 1989, disability activists were already naming disability as “the last civil rights movement,” yet two years later, the Church was reinforcing ablest gatekeeping in its ordination process.
Meanwhile, the Disability Discrimination Act (1995) and the Equality Act (2010) reshaped employment and service discrimination law. Somehow, in 2026, we are still talking about the employment and wellbeing of clergy with disabilities.
The article claims “encouraging steps,” but immediately qualifies it with “in at least some corners of the CofE.” That classic dodge. It creates the illusion of progress while avoiding the truth: inclusion is not embedded, consistent, and systemic. If inclusion only happens “in some corners,” then exclusion is happening everywhere else.
This new report, “Fearfully and Wonderfully Made” confirms what disabled Christians have been saying for years. It states that disabled and neurodivergent clergy face “significant threats to wellbeing” because of inherited assumptions about what a priest should be. It highlights inconsistent reasonable adjustments, fear of disclosure, inaccessible buildings, and a normalising overworking culture. It notes that clergy often have to “fight” for basic accommodations, there’s no data on disabled clergy and calls for cultural and structural change, not just goodwill.
In 2022, I wrote a four‑part series on ableism in the Church:
- Tackling Interpersonal Ableism in Church
- Tackling Structural Ableism in Church
- No Longer Complicit in Ableism
Everything this report now presents as “findings” is what disabled Christians have named for years through lived experience, not academic distance. Yet our voices are still treated as supplementary.
This report also lands at a difficult moment in my own discernment process. Currently, the focus is on my C4 Faculty application (C4.4) because I am divorced and remarried, and my current marriage is less than three years old. That scrutiny is frustrating enough. What troubles me more is knowing that once I clear this hurdle, the other aforementioned C4 awaits to assume my embodiment is problematic before I even speak.
Many factors ended my first marriage; my rediagnosed health and long‑term care were one of them. This isn’t unusual. Research shows that serious illness can increase the likelihood of marital breakdown. While findings vary, studies consistently highlight the pressures illness and caregiving places on relationships. Hannah, my current wife, however, knew everything. She knew the reality of my life and still chose me. Yet the Church doesn’t focus on this because of “risk management.”
When I remarried, I tried changing the traditional vow “in sickness and in health” to “in sickness and in all health.” I wanted to avoid the disability stereotype of my “sickness” and my wife as “health.” I followed the process. I waited for permission. The response I received was: “You don’t have a movement behind you.” That was it. Just a reminder that we are only heard when we become a problem too big to ignore. This reinforces what the report found, that those making these decisions are shaped by inherited ablest assumptions. They are not trained to see disability through dignity, equality, or theological lenses. They are trained to assess risk, manage optics, and avoid scandal. That is not neutral. It is biased. Forcing me and others to speak vows that misrepresent identity and marriage.
Finally, it’s also impossible to ignore that the report admits the Church has no idea how many disabled clergy actually exist. No monitoring or baseline. Yet the study draws uses just 27 people. That is not representation; it’s tokenism. When those with disabilities aren’t counted, we aren’t known, and when we aren’t known, we continue to be treated as anomalies. It breaks the principle of Equality justice: nothing about us without us.
Instead, the report was commissioned about disabled clergy, not by disabled clergy. We are still objects of study, not leaders of change. Until disability theology, policy, training, and discernment criteria advances, the Church will continue to congratulate itself for “encouraging steps” while leaving the underlying structures untouched.
I remain committed to ministry, to the Church of England, and to disability advocacy. This issue is widespread, in Churches, workplaces, legal systems, and life. I am strong, vocal, and calm. If change is needed, institutions need people like me to help push it in the right direction. This is not complicity. It is standing firm in my calling and knowing that if I can make an impact — even for one person — then that is why I am there. Nevertheless, encouraging steps fall short when the Body of Christ is constrained by an ableism the Church has yet to name.
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