Bishop Michael Perham dies
A FORMER Bishop of Gloucester, the Rt Revd Michael Perham (above), died on Monday, the diocese announced this week. Bishop Perham had been suffering from cancer. He was 69. He died peacefully at home. Obituary to follow
Kirk publishes sexuality report
THE Church of Scotland’s Theological Forum has published a report on human sexuality three days early, after its contents were leaked to the national press this week. It is to be considered by commissioners of the General Assembly, which is to meet in Edinburgh next month. Its publication is almost a year after commissioners voted by 339 votes to 215 to allow clerics in a same-sex civil marriage to continue to serve. The report authorises the Legal Questions Committee to study the legal implications of conducting same-sex marriages in church, and report to the General Assembly in 2018.
New Dean of Jersey appointed
THE Vice Dean of Guernsey and Rector of St Martin’s, Guernsey, the Revd Mike Keirle, will be the next Dean of Jersey, the diocese of Canterbury announced on Tuesday. He will succeed the Very Revd Bob Key, who resigned last year. Mr Keirle also was acting Dean during a vacancy in 2015.
Church wedding solemnised on Good Friday
NATALIA MORGAN and Geraint Dean were married in St Augustine’s, Pontllanfraith, in Wales, on Good Friday. The South Wales Argus reported the bride as saying that she could not understand objections to marrying on that day, because it was an uplifting occasion. It was also her sister’s birthday. A spokeswoman for the Church in Wales said that it was “very unusual, although not forbidden, to celebrate weddings in church on that day”.
Bristol memorial to 13th-century friars demolished
MEMORIAL PAVING commemorating 13th-century Franciscans on the site of their friary, outside an office building in Bristol, has been destroyed by developers. Tim Stanley, a PR consultant, wrote a short history of the site for a property surveyor, Robert Acreman, 30 years ago. This was cast in brass letters, set in a stone, and later unveiled by two Brothers from the Anglican Society of St Francis at Hilfield Friary in Dorset. The contractors later said that they had been given no instruction to preserve the memorial.
Corrections. The report “New allegations tell of savagery of Smyth beatings” (News, 13 April) contained inaccuracies: John Smyth did not run the Iwerne Christian camps, as stated, but was Chairman of the Iwerne Trust; and there have been no allegations that abuse took place at the camps themselves. In a brief news item last week, the Vice-President of the Methodist Conference, Rachel Lampard, was incorrectly identified as Richard Lampard. The photo of Salisbury Cathedral Choir (Focus, 13 April) was taken in Stanford Memorial Church, not Grace Cathedral, San Francisco. We apologise for these errors.