From Mr Paul Sandham
Sir, - Your report "MPs vie to have woman bishop" (News, 24
October) contains an assertion, made in Parliament, that cannot
go unchallenged. You say that Frank Field MP has suggested that, in
2012, "talent among bishops was 'at such a low ebb'" that the Crown
Nominations Commission had to appoint an Archbishop of Canterbury
"who had hardly got his bishop's cassock on".
Either Frank Field has a short memory or a distorted view of
bishops' suitability. His remark is a slight to our present Primate
and an insult to the broader bench. The Church had a handful of
strong contenders, but the CNC selected an individual with a
distinctively different background from his brother bishops'. Like
all effective successional planners, the CNC had the foresight to
transfer Justin Welby from the deanery of Liverpool to the see of
Durham.
The brevity of his tenure at Durham was more because Magdalene
College, Cambridge, moved in for Lord Williams, than because of CNC
panic or an absence of alternatives.
I valued the Member for Birkenhead as a synodsman, like him as a
writer, and admire him as a social reformer, but he is mistaken on
this occasion.
PAUL SANDHAM
52a Salterns Lane
Hayling Island
Hampshire PO11 9PJ