Another Pointless Death?
Just another pointless death. A provincial prophet, a failed rebel, a stirrer-up of trouble is brutally executed by the imperial regime. A story that has been repeated innumerable times before and since. What did he and his followers expect? What did he think he could achieve against the power and privilege of the establishment even in such a minor, far-flung trouble spot? What a waste.
But here we see Jesus of Nazareth continuing to proclaim the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is near you, among you, he had preached. The kingdom of God exists wherever God’s will is done; a place where the hungry are fed and where each forgives the wrongs done to them by others. A place where that forgiveness is immediately recognized by sitting down and eating together, breaking the barriers.
And this is how Jesus dies: breaking bread with his friends and forgiving those who executed him. Here in this one day (by the reckoning of the ancient world), beginning at sunset on Thursday evening and culminating on a hillside outside the city a few hours later. Here is the epitome of the kingdom.
And so, as Jesus dies on the Cross proclaiming Love, this is no less than the inauguration of the kingdom of God on earth, as it is in heaven.
1 CommentHonest to God at 50
Honest to God, by Bishop John Robinson, was first published in 1963, and has been in print ever since, selling over a million copies. To celebrate this anniversary, the publisher SCM Press is sponsoring a commemorative evening in April at St Martin-in-the-Fields and has assembled a panel to discuss its influence and contemporary resonance.
Free event — everyone welcome
Monday 29 April, 7:00pm
St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, London WC2N 4JJ
The panel includes popular authors Francis Spufford and Mark Vernon, Archdeacon of Canterbury Sheila Watson, and vicar of St Martin’s the Revd Dr Sam Wells. It will be chaired by BBC World Affairs Correspondent Mike Wooldridge.
More details at stmartin-in-the-fields.org/event/honest-to-god-at-50.
4 CommentsPope Benedict XVI to resign
It was announced from the Vatican this morning that Pope Benedict XVI is to resign with effect from 28 February.
Press reaction has been swift. The new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, in a press release, has responded:
In his visit to the UK, Pope Benedict showed us all something of what the vocation of the See of Rome can mean in practice — a witness to the universal scope of the gospel and a messenger of hope at a time when Christian faith is being called into question.
In his visit to the United Kingdom, Pope Benedict showed us all something of what the vocation of the See of Rome can mean in practice – a witness to the universal scope of the gospel and a messenger of hope at a time when Christian faith is being called into question. In his teaching and writing he has brought a remarkable and creative theological mind to bear on the issues of the day. We who belong to other Christian families gladly acknowledge the importance of this witness and join with our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters in thanking God for the inspiration and challenge of Pope Benedict’s ministry.
The Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, writes
… the Christian world will miss a great theologian with great spiritual depth.
63 CommentsWe should remember Pope Benedict communicated the revelation of God in a characteristic way as a true successor of St Peter. He was unafraid to proclaim the Gospel and challenge a culture that is so self-referential, managing to lift our eyes to God’s glory.
Archbishop's comments
Following an emergency meeting of the House of Bishops this morning, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of Canterbury delivered the Presidential Statement to General Synod, in which he called on members to ‘attend to one another…to give to one another the care that we need’. said that the failure to approve the draft Measure meant that the Church of England has “lost a measure of credibility” and that the Church could be seen as “wilfully blind” to modern trends and priorities.
At the end of yesterday afternoon’s proceedings the Archbishop of York said that the Presidents would be consulting overnight in the light of Synod’s decision not to give final approval to the proposed legislation about women in the episcopate. We met last night and we also this morning had the opportunity of an informal discussion with members of the House of Bishops. And what I say is in light of those meetings.
I’ve already said something in public about my personal reaction to yesterday’s vote and I don’t want to repeat what said then or offer a commentary on other people’s comments. But there are a few things it would be helpful to say from the chair today before we move on, as we must, to the rest of today’s business.
Whatever decision was made yesterday, today was always going to be a difficult day. There would have been, whatever decision was made, people feeling that their presence and their significance in the Church was in some sense put into question. There will be people feeling profoundly vulnerable, unwanted and unsure, and that means that the priority for today for all of us is to attend to one another in the light of that recognition, that is to give to one another the care that we need, and whatever else we do today, and think today and say today, I hope that that is what we will be able to offer one another.”
UPDATED Wednesday afternoon (transcript now available)
You can read and listen to the Archbishop’s address on the Lambeth Palace website. The full text is also reproduced below the fold.
Press coverage and comment
Updated Wednesday morning
Today’s General Synod news is extensively covered in the Press, and leads many of Wednesday’s front pages.
The Guardian has
- Church in crisis as it turns its back on women bishops
- Campaigners for women bishops in despair as laity rejects reform
- Andrew Brown writes for Comment is Free: A long and boring suicide note
- Church among men-only stragglers over women bishops
- Lucy Winkett writes a disaster for the church I love
The Telegraph’s main story is
- Church’s final no to women bishops
- Damian Thompson writes the Church of England votes for civil war
- Tim Stanley blogs Church is paralysed by its conflicting obsessions of equality and consensus
In the Independent the coverage is headlined:
- Beyond belief: Church is rocked by ‘no’ vote against women bishops plan
- Editorial A decision that leaves the Church in the past
- The paper’s founder and the First Church Estates Commissioner, Andreas Whittam Smith, writes that the vote was a profoundly emotional experience, and it ended in disaster
Update
Channel 4 News has a report which includes video from Church House and also an interview with Tony Baldry: Church of England votes against women bishops.
For many more links, see the CofE Media Briefing for today.
34 CommentsMore responses to the vote part 1
Updated overnight
Affirming Catholicism has issued this statement.
The failure of the Women Bishops’ Measure to achieve the necessary majority in the House of Laity today is a huge disappointment and sadness. Many men as well as many women will experience this as a real blow, but our hearts particularly go out this evening to our women clergy who have ministered so effectively in the Church and had hoped today would be an affirmation of their ministry.
The full text is copied below the fold.
WATCH has issed a press release (only on Facebook at the moment)
Today’s vote is a devastating blow for the Church of England and the people of this country.
This vote is a missed opportunity for a whole generation to see women and men sharing fully in the mission, ministry and leadership of the Church of England.
The full text is copied below the fold.
Inclusive Church has issued a press release which can be read here.
Inclusive Church deeply regrets that General Synod did not approve the Measure that would have allowed women to become bishops in the Church of England.
We hope that church leaders will take urgent action to bring forward new legislation and to restore public confidence in the Church.
Dianna Gwilliams, Chair of Inclusive Church said:
“I’m personally disappointed that this legislation did not receive the necessary majority in the House of Laity of General Synod. It is clear that the Houses of Clergy and Bishops, along with 42 out of 44 Diocesan Synods believed that the legislation was the best fit.
This debate is not about women. It is about the nature of our church and her leadership. I pray that as we continue to listen prayerfully to each other God will grant courage to all women and men who, together, are providing courageous leadership in our church.”
GRAS has issued this statement:
3 CommentsWe are deeply disappointed that the General Synod has made a decision so out of step with the will of the Church of England as a whole. The Synod’s decision to reject the Measure cuts right across what the vast majority of men and women in the Church of England long for and shows that our attempts at compromise have been ignored. It undermines the validity of the ministry of every ordained woman and sends out a negative message to all women everywhere. A single clause measure is now what GRAS will press for at every level.
Necessary but not sufficient
Robert Cotton, Rector of Holy Trinity Guildford and a member of the General Synod, writes …
Restraint
At various points in the Measure actions are described which, it must be presumed and hoped, spring from deeply held beliefs; but these beliefs are not described. For example, section 2 (5) says “ … includes a statement by the bishop that he will not ordain women to the office of priest…” This statement is a declared action with no reference to the supporting theological rationale. Moreover, the provision that must be made in the diocesan scheme flowing from the bishop’s statement does not need to refer to the attitude of the diocesan bishop. ‘Legislation is generally about the achievement of practical objectives’ (paragraph 35, GS Misc 1033). So there are already examples within the Measure of restraint being shown. Legislation is not the best place to name and describe theological convictions.
Necessary but not sufficient
This is partly because theological convictions appear different to different people. My passionately held belief may appear to you to be prejudice, or vice versa. The church flourishes when convictions are articulated and understood, and not merely held. In particular, spiritual discernment is made possible when theological convictions are articulated in the company of those who may disagree. Convictions may become held more passionately when we speak with our sympathisers, but they become better tested when we are not “preaching to the choir”. Indeed, it is a present danger for the church increasingly to fragment into pockets of ardently held beliefs where the ability to listen and speak is not fully practised. It is humbling to be in a position that our deeply held convictions are not convincing others. Such humility is needed both for conversations within the church and, even more pressingly, with those ‘in the world’.
So, theological convictions may themselves be necessary but not sufficient. The Archbishop of Canterbury identified that something was missing in section 2 (1) of the original Measure in his speech to Synod on July 9 (Para 33, GS Misc 1033). He pointed out that the church should be rightly fearful of accommodating itself to certain beliefs. But paragraph 36 notes that it is very difficult as well as contentious to seek to define what theological convictions are acceptable. It may also be seen to be inappropriate for legislation to attempt this task. What the legislation can do is commit all parties to become involved in further discernment by requiring there to be conversations that explore both the roots and consequences of firmly held beliefs. Indeed, the example that is frequently used is misogyny. Given that what to you appears to be misogyny may be to the other person a deeply held belief (a theological conviction), the example acknowledges that there are theological convictions that can be deemed unacceptable. The method for making that judgement must include conversation between interested parties; no legislation can be sufficient in itself to determine the rightness or otherwise of theological convictions.
Assurance
The logic of these points moves us towards option 4. Restraint urges us to ‘prune the provision’ (Para 52); but this must be balanced by reference to process. So the suggested wording in paragraph 55, second option, captures these two aspects. Paragraph 56 raises a concern that there is no ‘assurance that the guidance would result in the provision of ministry that parishes would be able to receive’ – nor should it. For, as has already been established, there are deeply held beliefs, that will be presented as theological convictions, which the church should resist accommodating (see the archbishop’s remarks). Rather the inclusion of reference to process ensures that there will be opportunity ‘to discover more than is apparent from the Letter of Request’ (Para 60).
Seen as an enlargement of option 4, option 5 falls foul of the criteria of seeking to state too much. We have already recognised that a desire to have a male bishop leaves the theological rationale unsaid. This is inappropriate for relationships (where reasoning needs to be offered, heard and discussed), but appropriate for legislation (which is not the right forum for such discernment). In a similar way, the consequences that flow from having a male bishop should also be left unspoken within legislation, but articulated in the context of spiritual relationships between bishops, priests and parishes. The structure of the theological argument should be “we request a male bishop for XYZ theological reasons so that ABC may follow”. For example, a Traditional Catholic parish should be able to describe the particular ways in which it will flourish given the provision of a male bishop. Both reasons and goals, once discussed, heard and respected, will enable parishes, priests and bishops to work actively together with mutual understanding. The word “effective” in paragraph 67 is a good example of legislation over-reaching itself. No law can assure parishes of effective ministry; only proper training, active prayer and the blessings of the Holy Spirit can do that. So legislation itself is not the right place for reasons (XYZ) or goals (ABC).
4 CommentsRevision of Clause 5(1)(c)
On Monday the General Synod voted to adjourn the debate on Final Aproval of the Bishops and Priests (Consecration and Ordination of Women) Measure to enable the House of Bishops to reconsider the new clause 5(1)(c) that the House had inserted.
We propose to conduct a discussion here on Thinking Anglicans with the aim of making one or more suggestions to the House on the form that reconsideration might take. In order to make this as constructive, helpful and eirenic as possible, we will conduct this in a more formal way than we normally do.
- Discussion will begin with a post from one or more guest contributors
- Commenting will as now be subject to moderation, but we will more strictly enforce the rules on relevance, ad hominem comment (none allowed) and so on. ‘Relevance’ means keeping to this particular topic: constructively discussing possible texts that would satisfy the reference back to the HoB from the Synod, i.e., we are solely concerned with revision, removal, expansion, replacement etc of clause 5(1)(c).
- We hope that various viewpoints will be offered, and we expect all to be respected. However, the purpose of the discussion is to make the draft Measure more likely to gain Final Approval at the General Synod, and more likely to gain parliamentary approval.
We firmly believe and hope that a site named ‘Thinking Anglicans’ can and should be a place for this sort of debate: one of high quality, and high regard for other participants, as well as for those who are not participating, whether an individual agrees with them or not.
We will introduce this debate shortly.
Simon, Simon and Peter
15 CommentsArchbishop's sermon from St Paul's Cathedral
The Archbishop of Canterbury preached this sermon at the National Service of Thanksgiving held in St Paul’s Cathedral to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Her Majesty the Queen (and copied in full below the fold).
In it the Archbishop paid tribute to the selfless dedication of Her Majesty who, he said, ‘has shown a quality of joy in the happiness of others’ throughout her reign.
‘Dedication’ is a word that has come to mean rather less than it used to. Those of us who belong to the same generation as Her Majesty’s older children will recall a sixties song about a ‘dedicated follower of fashion’ – as though to be ‘dedicated’ just meant to be very enthusiastic. But in the deep background of the word is the way it is used in classical and biblical language: in this context, to be ‘dedicated’ is to be absolutely removed from other uses, being completely available to God.
34 CommentsAnd so to be dedicated to the good of a community – in this case both a national and an international community – is to say, ‘I have no goals that are not the goals of this community; I have no well-being, no happiness, that is not the well-being of the community. What will make me content or happy is what makes for the good of this particular part of the human family.’
Dean of Ely
It was announced from Downing Street this morning that the next Dean of Ely is to be the Revd Canon Mark Bonney.
Mark, 55, is currently the Canon Treasurer of Salisbury Cathedral, an office he has held since 2004. Educated in Ipswich and at Cambridge, he was ordained deacon in 1985 and priest in 1986. He was Chaplain and then Precentor at St Albans Cathedral between 1988 and 1992, vicar of Eaton Bray (1992-96), and Rector of Great Berkhamsted from 1996 until he moved to Salisbury. He was a member of the General Synod from 1995 until 2010, serving as a Chaplain to the Synod for five years, and as a member of the Liturgical Commission for four years. He is Chair of the Salisbury DAC and is the Cathedral’s representative on the diocesan Sudan Committee which promotes the diocese’s link with Sudan.
Canon Bonney, who is married with two teenage daughters, will be installed as Dean of Ely in September.
Further information can be found on the Ely website.
3 CommentsLittle Gidding Pilgrimage
Saturday 19 May
For nearly 400 years pilgrims have been drawn to Little Gidding in the north of the diocese of Ely, ever since the saintly Nicholas Ferrar and his family lived there in the early seventeenth century.
You are warmly invited to join the annual Pilgrimage to Little Gidding
commemorating the life and example of Nicholas Ferrar.
This year’s pilgrimage is led by Stephen Conway, Bishop of Ely and President of the Friends of Little Gidding.
Join the celebration of Holy Communion in Leighton Bromswold Church
whose restoration was funded by George Herbert and directed by the Ferrars
Share lunch with fellow pilgrims
Enjoy the gentle walk through the Huntingdonshire countryside
from Leighton Bromswold to Little Gidding
(about five miles along the country roads, with three short stations for prayer and rest)
Gather round the tomb of Nicholas Ferrar for prayer
Sing Evening Prayer at Little Gidding ‘where prayer has been valid’
(preacher: Bishop Stephen; choir: the Hurstingstone Singers)
Delight in Tea and conversation at Ferrar House
For more details see www.littlegidding.org.uk/pilgrimage or see below the fold.
3 CommentsNormal service resumed
We have now resolved the problems with the TA server (installing new hardware and late nights getting the software running properly on it!).
Commenting has now been re-enabled.
Simon K
(TA techie)
Anglican Covenant: six more Diocesan Synods
This Saturday six more diocesan synods voted on the Anglican Covenant motion: Blackburn, Exeter, Guildford, Lincoln, Oxford and Peterborough.
Three Synods voted against (Guildford, Lincoln and Oxford) and three in favour (Blackburn, Exeter and Peterborough). With these results the current figures are 23 diocesan synods against and 15 in favour.
It is therefore impossible for a majority of the 44 dioceses to vote in favour. Consequently the proposed adoption of the Covenant cannot return to the General Synod in this quinquennium (ending in 2015). After that any consideration of the Covenant would have to start again and include a new reference to the dioceses.
Blackburn: covenant accepted
Bishops: 2 for / 0 against / 0 abstentions
Clergy: 40 for / 7 against / 1 abstention
Laity: 33 for / 16 against / 1 abstention
Exeter: covenant accepted
Bishops: 3 for / 0 against / 0 abstentions
Clergy: 28 for / 8 against / 1 abstention
Laity: 30 for / 20 against / 2 abstentions
Guildford: covenant rejected
Bishops: 2 for / 0 against
Clergy: 14 for / 22 against / 1 abstention
Laity: 23 for / 18 against / 2 abstentions
Lincoln: covenant rejected
Bishops: 0 for / 3 against / 0 abstentions (corrected figures)
Clergy: 6 for / 28 against / 3 abstentions
Laity: 2 for / 34 against / 2 abstentions
Oxford: covenant rejected (some uncertainty in exact figures, apparently the tellers did not agree, but definitely lost in house of clergy)
Bishops: 3 for / 1 against
Clergy: 14 or 15 for / 36 or 38 against / 2 abstentions
Laity: 32 or 35 for / 24 or 29 against / 3 abstentions
Peterborough: covenant accepted (please ignore earlier figures to the contrary)
56 CommentsBishops: 2 for / 0 against
Clergy: 22 for / 19 against / 1 abstention
Laity: 28 for / 13 against / 7 abstentions
Reduced service
We are experiencing a few technical difficulties with the Thinking Anglicans server. Unfortunately this means that it is not currently possible to add comments to the site. We are working to restore normal service and will do so as soon as possible.
1 CommentAnglican Covenant: this Saturday's votes
This Saturday another five diocesan synods voted on the Anglican Covenant motion: Chester, Ely, Liverpool, Norwich and St Albans. The motion passed in Chester and Norwich, and was defeated in Ely, Liverpool and St Albans.
Chester: covenant accepted
Bishops: 3 for / 0 against / 0 abstentions
Clergy: 22 for / 14 against / 5 abstentions
Laity: 26 for / 23 against / 5 abstentions
Ely: covenant defeated
Bishops: 1 for / 0 against / 1 abstention
Clergy: 16 for / 23 against / 1 abstention
Laity: 19 for / 19 against / 0 abstentions
Liverpool: covenant defeated
Bishops: 0 for / 2 against / 0 abstentions
Clergy: 10 for / 26 against / 1 abstention
Laity: 8 for / 28 against / 5 abstentions
Norwich: covenant accepted
Bishops: 3 for / 0 against / 0 abstentions
Clergy: 26 for / 10 against / 1 abstention
Laity: 19 for / 15 against / 1 abstention
St Albans: covenant defeated
Bishops: 2 for / 0 against
Clergy: 21 for / 31 against
Laity: 17 for / 44 against
With today’s results, the current count of diocesan votes is 12 in favour and 20 against. 22 Noes would mean that the Covenant would not come back to the General Synod for approval.
16 CommentsAnglican Covenant: more diocesan votes
Today the Anglican Covenant motion comes to another six diocesan synods: Carlisle, Ripon & Leeds, Bath & Wells, Coventry, Southwark and Worcester.
Ripon & Leeds, Southwark and Worcester have each rejected the Covenant. Modern Church gives the voting as follows
In Ripon & Leeds the voting was :
Bishops: 2 for, 0 against
Clergy: 12 for, 22 against
Laity: 8 for, 17 against
In Southwark the voting was:
Bishops: 1 for, 0 against, 1 abstention
Clergy: 10 for, 27 against, 2 abstentions
Laity 21 for, 32 against
In Worcester the voting was:
Bishops: 2 for, 0 against
Clergy: 5 for, 19 against
Laity: 6 for, 22 against
Those three results take the running total to 16 dioceses against and 8 in favour. Rejection by 22 diocesan synods means that the Covenant will not come back to the General Synod, and can’t be approved by the Church of England.
Update
Further update on Monday to correct numbers of abstentions at Bath & Wells
The remaining three results took the running total to 17 against and 10 in favour.
In Carlisle the voting was:
Bishops: 2 for, 0 against
Clergy: 19 for, 13 against, 2 abstentions
Laity: 33 for, 17 against
In Bath & Wells the voting was:
Bishops: 0 for, 1 against, 1 abstention
Clergy: 17 for, 22 against, 0 abstentions
Laity: 18 for, 23 against, 4 abstentions
In Coventry the voting was:
37 CommentsBishops 2 for, 0 against
Clergy: 22 for, 7 against
Laity: 26 for, 2 against
O Emmanuel
The last Evening Prayer of Advent is the context for this final ‘O’ Antiphon, O Emmanuel. When Evening Prayer comes round again, tomorrow, he will come. And that is the hidden message in these seven antiphons. Working backwards from today we have seven titles addressed to the coming baby: Emmanuel, Rex Gentium, Oriens, Clavis David, Radix Jesse, Adonaï, and Sapientia. Taking the initial letter of each of these invocations yields the words ‘ero cras’, a couple of Latin words that mean ‘Tomorrow, I will come’.
And the identity of who it is that is coming is to be found in all those titles: the divine Word or Wisdom; the LORD, the ‘I AM’; a shoot sprung from the family tree of Jesse; the successor of David; a Light shining in the darkness; the true ruler of the world. And Emmanuel.
Emmanuel, or God-with-us, was a name used by Isaiah when he tells King Ahaz that the royal house of David will flourish despite the great danger that it faced from Damascus and Samaria. Isaiah foretells that before a child who is still in the womb is able to choose between right and wrong, the kings of Damascus and Samaria will fall, and the threat to Jerusalem will fall with it. Isaiah gives this unborn child the name ‘Immanuel’, a sign of hope in the future and trust in the divine will.
And Matthew, in his proclamation of the good news about Jesus, takes this message out of Isaiah and makes the parallel with Jesus’s birth, seeing it too as a sign of hope and trust in God, and of liberation from oppression and tyranny.
To us, the name Immanuel signifies even more. It tells us of the immanence of God: El in Hebrew, so we can make a pun and say that Immanu-el means the immanence of El — that God, the creator of the universe, lives among us, lives a human life, a humble human life, born to an ordinary family, in a far-off colonial outpost. God is not some remote cosmic being, and God is not some fickle pleasure-seeking divinity who masquerades in human form on occasion. No, this is a God who puts off the divine attributes to live within the limits of a human life and a human death. Here the human and the divine mingle in a way that poetry and theology are better at describing than science. And in a day or so’s time we shall be, as it were, witnesses to this mingling, this incarnation, as we celebrate the birth of that baby and ponder its meaning in our hearts.
O come, O come Emmanuel!
8 CommentsO Adonaï
As a youngster, the version of this antiphon found in the Advent carol ‘O come, O come Emmanuel’, always intrigued me. What was this strange word, sung as ‘add-on-ay-eye’? It was several years before I discovered the answer to this question, buried in the foreword of my Revised Standard Version of the Bible. There it was explained why in the Old Testament, the word ‘Lord’ was frequently printed in all capital letters (in ‘caps & small caps’ to be precise), and occasionally in the expression ‘Lord God’ the word ‘God’ was capitalized instead. This tradition, still followed in many of today’s Bibles, dates back many centuries, or even millennia.
When printed in capitals in this way the word ‘LORD’ represents the occurrence in the Bible of the name of God. In the original Hebrew this is indicated by four consonants (written Hebrew having no letters for the vowels), and variously represented in our own alphabet, perhaps most commonly by the letters I, H, V, and H. But in ancient times this name had already come to be considered too holy to actually speak, and instead the Hebrew word for ‘Lord’ was spoken aloud. And that Hebrew word is Adonaï.
This then, is the meaning of the verse of the carol, and the meaning of the Advent antiphon. Each of the antiphons is addressed to Jesus: and in addressing Jesus as Adonaï we implicitly declare our belief in his divinity: that the baby born in Bethlehem is indeed the incarnation of the eternal God who appeared to Moses in the burning bush, declaring to him his existence and his very name, the divine ‘I AM’. And the salvation that came to the Hebrew slaves, the downtrodden people in Egypt, that salvation is offered to all God’s people right now.
O come, O come, Adonaï!
8 CommentsKenneth Stevenson
The Diocese of Portsmouth website reports the sad news that Kenneth Stevenson, the former Bishop of Portsmouth, yesterday lost his battle with leukaemia, dying peacefully in hospital aged 61.
Bishop Kenneth died in hospital early this morning (January 12) after a short illness. His successful earlier treatment for leukaemia had led to a deterioration in his overall health and physical resilience to infection.
May he rest in peace!
3 CommentsColin Slee
Southwark Cathedral reports this morning
The Very Revd Colin Slee, The Dean of Southwark, died peacefully at his home surrounded by his family at 1am on Thursday 25 November.
Dean Colin had been diagnosed with cancer just a few weeks ago and the spread of his illness was very rapid.
May he rest in peace!
Updated Thursday afternoon (twice)
In The Guardian (CiF), Stephen Bates writes: Liberal Anglicans will mourn the death of Colin Slee
Damian Thompson blogs in the Daily Telegraph: The Church of England won’t be as much fun without Colin Slee
The news is also covered by local community site London-SE1 where it is noted that he had been suffering from pancreatic cancer.
There are now obituaries in The Guardian and The Telegraph.
25 Comments