THE Bishop of Chester, the Rt Revd Peter
Forster, and his staff team usually hold their annual residential
meeting in a conventional English setting. This year, however,
Bishop Forster took his two suffragans, the Bishop of Stockport,
the Rt Revd Robert Atwell, and the Bishop of Birkenhead, the Rt
Revd Keith Sinclair, together with his archdeacons, the diocesan
secretary, and the Dean, the Very Revd Gordon McPhate, to Rome for
four days.
Their agenda was to look in detail at the mission and
development of the Church in the Chester diocese; but while they
were there the ten-strong team visited the Venerable English
College, as well as the Anglican Centre, where they met its
director, Archbishop David Moxon, who is the Archbishop of
Canterbury's representative to the Holy See. A highlight of the
visit occurred during a papal audience in St Peter's Square, when
the three Bishops were called to meet Pope Francis. They exchanged
greetings with him, and the Pope asked them to pray for him.