Tom Middleton, the assistant director of governance and finance for the Greater London Authority, will serve as the new director of Forward in Faith, according to an October 28 announcement by the traditionalist Anglo-Catholic organization. Middleton will take the place of Dr. Colin Podmore, who will retire in February. A parishioner of St. Silas Church, Kentish Town, in London, Middleton holds a degree in theology from Durham University.
Founded in response to the ordination of women in the Church of England in 1992, Forward in Faith “upholds catholic order and the catholic doctrine of the sacraments, and in particular the threefold ministry in historic succession, which the Church of England shares with the Church throughout the world and across the ages.” It has branches in most dioceses of the Church of England, and affiliated chapters in Scotland and Wales.
Forward in Faith also finances and supports the work of The Society, an ecclesial community founded after the Church of England’s authorization of the ministry of women as bishops in 2014. The Society, which is led by a council of bishops, provides episcopal oversight and authorized priestly ministry for several hundred affiliated parishes which have adopted resolutions indicating that they will only receive male clergy ordained in historic succession. Twenty-one deacons and priests have been ordained in 2019 by bishops of The Society.
Middleton said, “I am greatly honored to be taking up this role. I look forward to meeting as many of my fellow members of Forward in Faith as I can and to working with the trustees, Council members and branch officers. I shall do my utmost to continue the sterling work of Forward in Faith and its current Director in promoting the Catholic faith as we have received it in the Church of England.”
