Over the last couple of years, France has built up the reputation of a staunchly secular society where, slowly but surely, signs of religious manifestation are being removed from the public space with an appeal to laïcité (French secularism) and other French values. This is why it came as a surprise that, after a long list of unsuccessful religious manifestation cases, in August 2017 the Dijon Administrative Tribunal ruled against a municipality that had decided no to longer accommodate Muslim and Jewish dietary prescriptions in school canteens. The reason for the sudden change appeared to be the approach taken in the relevant case: rather than basing itself on freedom of manifestation, the tribunal had chosen to decide the case solely on the basis of the best interests of the child. Although that approach offered some much-desired relief for the religious communities involved, following an overview of the case below, I will argue that it may not be a sustainable answer to the curtailing of religious manifestations in the name of laïcité.

Archbishop Dr Barry Morgan having retired, the presidential address at the April meeting was given by the Senior Bishop, the Rt Revd John Davies, Bishop of Swansea and Brecon, on behalf of all of the bishops of the Church, with the emphasis on evangelism – which set the tone for the rest of the Governing Body meeting.

In November, the Charity Commission for England and Wales, the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland and the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator issued a joint publication, ‘Reporting of relevant matters of interest to UK charity regulators’, urging auditors and independent examiners to be more proactive about reporting concerns that may arise during their examination of charity accounts. This is in addition to the guidance on matters of material significance that must be reported as a legal duty: the new publication provides examples of the matters that may be reported to the charity regulators if an auditor or independent examiner has any cause for concern. The regulators’ basic message is, ‘If in doubt, report it’.

This year's General Synod, the third meeting of the triennium, was held in Limerick City in a hotel with conference facilities. It was the first time that the General Synod had met in the Diocese of Limerick and Killaloe. The Synod passed Bills relating to ecumenical canons, General Synod membership and confirmation registers, as well as the ongoing area of pensions. There was also a Bill fixing anomalies relating to cross-references in the Constitution following the consolidation of part of the Constitution at last year's General Synod. Bills relating to the table of contents of the Book of Common Prayer were also passed.

The General Synod met at St Paul's and St George's Church in Edinburgh from 8 to 10 June. In his charge to Synod the Primus, the Most Revd David Chillingworth, called the Church to unity as it debated its understanding of marriage. He suggested that God privileged agreement: ‘if two or three agree on earth about anything in my name, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven’. The converse was that the inability to agree closed off blessing and the challenge was whether the Church's oneness in Christ could sustain unity in the face of the diversity of views.

On 23 March, the European Council agreed the terms of a Brexit transition period under which the United Kingdom's phased departure will last for 21 months, ending in December 2020. The European Union (Withdrawal) Bill completed its consideration in the House of Lords with Government defeats on several issues, perhaps the most controversial of which were amendments requiring the Government to explore the option of staying in a customs union (by a majority of 123), limiting the ability to use secondary legislation to change existing EU rights after they have been transposed into domestic law (by a majority of 97) and retaining most of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights on the statute book after Brexit (by a majority of 71).