College principal to be Bishop of Penrith
THE Principal of Trinity College, Bristol, the Revd Dr Emma Ineson, is to be the next Suffragan Bishop of Penrith, in Carlisle diocese. She will be based in Kendal, and will have particular responsibility for the county’s ecumenical God for All strategy (News, 16 March). Brought up in Kenya, where her parents trained teachers, Dr Ineson, who is 48, studied English language and linguistics, before completing a doctorate on power and authority in the language of worship. From 2003 to 2006, she was a chaplain at Lee Abbey in Devon. She has been on the General Synod since 2010, the Faith and Order Commission, the Implementation and Dialogue Group on the Five Guiding Principles, the Lambeth 2020 Design Group, and the C of E Evangelical Council. Her husband, Canon Mat Ineson, is the Vicar of St Mary’s, Stoke Bishop. Dr Ineson will be consecrated on 27 February next year.
New Dean of Chester announced
THE Archdeacon of Leicester, the Ven. Dr Timothy Stratford, who is 57, is to be the Dean of Chester. Between 1986 and 2012, he served in parishes in Liverpool. A member of the General Synod for 15 years and of the Liturgical Commission for ten years, he has written and edited books and booklets focusing on worship and mission. His Ph.D. was awarded in 2009 for a study of Ritualism in the mid-Victorian slums.
Bishop of Jarrow to retire in October
THE Bishop of Jarrow, the Rt Revd Mark Bryant, will retire on his next birthday, in October 2018, when he will turn 69. It had been “an extraordinary blessing” to live among the people in the north-east for the past 11 years, he said. The Bishop of Durham, the Rt Revd Paul Butler, spoke of Bishop Bryant’s work in “helping people discern vocation to ordination and also his championing of poverty issues” and his wife, Elisabeth’s, support of clergy spouses.
CANTERBURY CATHEDRALFacelift: new gargoyles are being prepared for the roof of Canterbury Cathedral. The first in more than 100 years, they have been designed and made by the cathedral stonemasons Steve Manuel and Ian Gartside
Dream fulfilled as Coventry drops fees
THE Dean and Chapter of Coventry Cathedral have abolished the entry charge for visitors, first introduced in 2010, it was announced at a special celebration on Saturday. This was “the fulfilment of a five-year dream”, the Dean, the Very Revd John Witcombe, said. A statement said that the cathedral’s finances had been “brought under tight control”, and that the launch of the Investors in Hope fund-raising campaign, and collaboration with the diocese of Coventry, had made the change possible. Visitors will now be asked to make a donation.
Ecumenical request for Pope to cross NI border
POPE FRANCIS has been urged to visit to Northern Ireland this summer, to encourage cross-border “peace and reconciliation”. He is due to visit Dublin in August. A letter was sent on Friday of last week by the Anglican Archbishop of Armagh, Dr Richard Clarke; the Presbyterian Moderator, the Rt Revd Dr Noble McNeely; the Methodist President, the Revd Dr Lawrence Graham; and the President of the Irish Council of Churches, the Anglican Bishop of Clogher, the Rt Revd John McDowell. “We know that members of the Catholic Church, both north and south of the border, will be greatly encouraged if these visits were to come about,” they wrote. “The potential that a visit to Northern Ireland could have in promoting the cause of peace and reconciliation throughout this island cannot be underestimated.”
BBC accepts that Jesuit was not 1605 conspirator
THE BBC has agreed to re-edit two episodes of the BAFTA-nominated drama documentary Elizabeth I’s Secret Agents because it suggested that a Jesuit priest, Fr John Gerard, gave the Gunpowder Plot his blessing and might even have aided the conspirators. The Corporation is upholding a complaint from Michael Maslinski, the priest’s ten-times-great-nephew, that Gerard had been wrongly implicated by the programme in the conspiracy. He told The Daily Telegraph last Friday: “John Gerard has been revered in my family for 400 years. . . To see him represented as a terrorist was shocking.”