Meeting in Belfast today, the Special Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI) agreed to hold another special meeting in February of next year (or at another date called by the Moderator) to consider the recruitment and the position of Clerk of the General Assembly and General Secretary of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.
Addressing the General Assembly, Very Rev Dr David Bruce, Convener of PCI’s General Council, described considerations around the appointment as ‘an urgent matter’. It followed the agreement of last June’s General Assembly to begin the recruitment process in January 2026.
Speaking about the appointment and the previous General Assembly, Dr Bruce said, that decisions had already been made in principle about the appointment of a Clerk Designate, “but events have overtaken us”.
Outlining proposed way ahead, Dr Bruce said, “To that end, the General Council proposes that a Task Group commence work immediately to revise the appointment process, job description and personnel specification for the post or posts, of Clerk and General Secretary.
“The question needs to be asked if for reasons of good governance, and the responsible recruitment of personnel for a role that is actually do-able, these matters need to be revisited before a decision is taken on how to proceed.”
Members of Assembly agreed to establish the Task Group to review the appointment process, job description and personnel specification, for the post, or posts of Clerk Designate and General Secretary. Dr Bruce explained that the Moderator may choose to call another Special meeting of the General Assembly on Tuesday, 17 February 2026, or another date, to address this matter directly, in light of the Task Group’s report.
Role of the Moderator
During the meeting, the Members of Assembly discussed the role of the Moderator for 2026-2027 in that it ‘will be primarily a ‘pastoral’ moderatorship, with fewer formal and public duties, but will instead concentrate on pastoring PCI as a denomination’ as stated on page 20 of the Report of the General Council before the Assembly.
For this session, as it concerned the role of the Moderator, the current bearer of the office, Rt Rev Dr Richard Murray handed over to Very Rev Dr Rob Craig, Moderator from 2013-2014, to chair the debate on this section of the Report.
Paragraphs 1-8 on pages 12 and 13 of the Reportsummarised PCI’s central Safeguarding failures that were announced publicly on 12 November. In light of these, the Report explained that, ‘it would be inappropriate for PCI to engage in some, although not all, of the normal formal and public duties of the Moderator of the General Assembly.’
Speaking to the Assembly, Rev Dr David Allen, Acting Clerk of the General Assembly, said that the thought behind the report and resolutions was that
“PCI must recognise that as an institution, we are under criminal investigation, so we can’t unthinkingly behave as if it is business as usual. The report and its resolutions seek to address what this should mean in practice.”
Dr Allen explained that the General Assembly Advisory Committee had examined two options: The first was that the normal election process for Moderator be suspended for the year 2026-27 and the second was for the election process continue as normal, but that was recognised that the role of Moderator would have a different emphasis, being described in the report as more pastoral.
The Acting clerk continued,
“Having weighed the merits of both, members of the Assembly will see that the second option is being recommended. It’s recognised that every Moderator plays a pastoral role – that’s always a very important part of the Moderatorship, pastoral, encouraging, praying for and with the church – members, elders, ministers, presbyteries.
“That’s recognised, but the report is saying that in our current circumstances, that aspect of the role will increase and be more significant, and along with that, invitations to some public events should respectfully be declined.”
While there were some speeches opposed to the resolution, Members of Assembly agreed, and asked the General Assembly Advisory Committee to bring a report for discussion to the next meeting of the General Council for consideration.
Members also agreed that the General Council bring a report to a 2026 Special Assembly, having considered whether the ceremonial elements to the June 2026 General Assembly should be reduced and how Councils of the General Assembly report.
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