You see it just doesn't seem right to have coloured people in the Church of England wearing mitres and carrying crosiers. Where will it all end? There'll be bishops in the House of Lords with thick Nigerian accents. There'll bishops speaking to Prince Philip at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Day with funny Indian accents. And these ethnic minorities might make terrible grammatical mistakes and split their infinitives. After all they were taught English at schools in Delhi or Lagos or Karachi where they lived with the retrograde, thousand-page Wren and Martin grammar textbook and did not have the privilege of New Labour's child-centred education methodologies. And none of them have been to Eton or Harrow or Winchester. And none of them got to know the right people at the right time on the right committees. So they have no ecclesiastical experience of church government.

And what would Mrs Forbes-Hamilton say? It's bad enough having her manor house purchased by a certain Mr De Vere. It's bad enough that he is half-Pole and half-Czech. He even had to change his name to sound more English! Or is De Vere French? We cannot have bishops with first names like Anandraj or Ravi and surnames like Okonkwo or Putanangaddy. Getting Sentamu right has been difficult enough and most English clergy call him Sentanu. If you can't even pronounce the name of your Father in God (or Mother in God) correctly how can he (or she) be your chief shepherd (or shepherdess)? 'My sheep have to know my name and be able to pronounce it correctly,' states a variant reading from the Gospel according to the Crown Appointments Committee. Simple names like Bob or Pete or Jane or Jill are helpful and memorable. Surnames like Fernandes or Soares are confusing. You're not sure if they end with a 'z' or 's'. You are not sure where these blighters actually originate from! Portugal or Macao or Goa?

There is a more serious problem. If we had bishops of Pakistani or Indian or Nigerian origin and if we appointed them to dioceses like Bradford (now part of the super-diocese of Yorkshire and the Dales so no fear of that any longer) with a predominantly Muslim population--they might do what Christians do in Pakistan, i.e. preach Jesus to the Muslims in Urdu and stir up race riots. Look at the chaos caused by that chappie Michael Nazir-Ali when he was Bishop of Rochester. He actually said there are no-go areas in Britain for white people! And thousands of white people wrote back supporting him and suggesting he ought to be made Archbishop of Canterbury. But they were white working class people without the benefit of a liberal university education who hold similar prejudices against Muslims so we can't really take them seriously!

Just imagine appointing an Indian to the see of Leicester--a city with the largest Hindu population of Indian origin in Europe. He might refuse to accept food offered to idols for at the Diwali festival and might talk in Hindi or Gujarati about Jesus as the Light of the World at the Hindu festival of light. Where would it all end? So what do we do with all the thousands of pounds we have spent on reports on how to include ethnic minorities and all the blood that has been spilt in hours of self-flagellation at General Synod meetings on how tragic it is that the leadership in the Church of England is still male, pale and stale?

Of course that has changed since the last year with an avalanche of seven women bishops being found and ordained. Hold on! Within ten months or so of the Women Bishops Measure being passed we have managed to appoint seven women to the episcopate!!! And though the Church of England 2007 report Present and Participating--A Place at the Table (yet another report with a fancy title!) concluded that the Church of England is 'institutionally racist' not a single BAME (Black and Ethnic Minority) person has been appointed as a diocesan or suffragan bishop or to any significant position in the Church of England's hierarchy since that report!

Has the Holy Spirit somehow missed out on people from ethnic minorities (in many parts of the UK white people are now ethnic minorities) when giving gifts in the Body of Christ? Has the Church of England bypassed the Day of Pentecost? Or has the Church of England forgotten that our Lord Jesus Christ was himself an Asian and would probably not be nominated and appointed to a senior position in the Church of England because of his ethnic background?

There is one possible solution. If you have watched the BBC comedy Yes, Minister you will know that the English Civil Service are trained to be diplomatic, never rock the boat, and are highly skilled in the art of being inebriated with the exuberance of their own verbosity while managing to say nothing. I would recommend six months training at a special centre set up by the Archbishop of Canterbury where ethnic minority priests can be trained to fit in, use knives, forks and spoons in the correct order, speak with posh accents, write reports that would fill a library or a terabyte hard disk, but most importantly master the most difficult art of speaking without actually saying anything. That would qualify them as eminently suitable for positions of eminence in the Church of England.

The Rev. Canon Dr. Jules Gomes is Vicar of Arbory and Castletown and Canon Theologian on the Isle of Man. He holds a Ph. D in Old Testament from the University of Cambridge. Jules taught at the United Theological College, London School of Theology and Liverpool Hope University. He also served as Chaplain to the Old Royal Naval College, University of Greenwich and Trinity College of Music. Before coming to the Island, he was Dwelly Raven Canon and Artistic Director at Liverpool Cathedral. Jules enjoys motorcycling, rifle shooting, playing an occasional round of golf, classical music and jazz.