First woman Dean appointed for Liverpool
THE next — and first female — Dean of Liverpool will be Canon Sue Jones, Director of Mission and Ministry for the diocese of Derby, it was announced on Wednesday. Canon Jones was born in Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, and was one of the first women priests ordained in the Church in Wales, and the first woman dean in Wales when she became Dean of Bangor in 2011. “I was struck by how suited Liverpool Cathedral is for the city,” she said. “A people-centred cathedral called to serve the people is a place that I felt God wanted me to be.” Canon Jones will be installed on 5 May by the Bishop of Liverpool, the Rt Revd Paul Bayes. He said: “We interviewed a number of outstanding candidates and I am delighted to say that Sue was the unanimous first choice of our appointment panel.”
Bishop criticises planned curbs on homeless people in Dorset
THE Bishop of Sherborne, the Rt Revd Karen Gorham, has criticised Poole Borough Council for “ignoring” public concerns that were raised in a consultation on its proposed Public Space Protection Order to impose severe restrictions on homeless people in the town. “This decision makes homeless people even more vulnerable by limiting the number of hours they can bed down for the night,” she said. Colin Brady, the social-justice programme manager for the diocese of Salisbury, which covers Poole and parts of Bournemouth, said that alterations had also been made to public spaces in Bournemouth “to create a hostile environment” for homeless people. “This will anger many local people,” he said. “Neither of these approaches will make anyone safe, get anyone off the streets, help anyone into making a new life for themselves.”
ELY CATHEDRALSewing hope: Lt. Col. Neil Stace, a finalist in BBC2’s The Great British Sewing Bee (2015), with heart pincushions made by soldiers of the First World War and the present day. He spoke at a preview on Wednesday of two exhibitions at Ely Cathedral this month: “100 Hearts for 100 Years” and “To End All Wars”, on the use of sewing for rehabilitation
Southwark Cathedral counts cost of June attack
THE Chapter of Southwark Cathedral has applied to the Metropolitan Police’s insurance and claims services to recover the costs of repairs to the churchyard gate and doors, which were badly damaged when the special forces conducted a controlled explosion to gain entry to the area during the terrorist attack at London Bridge and Borough Market, in June (News, 9 June). A cathedral spokeswoman told The Times on Monday that the 19th-century churchyard gate had been damaged, and internal glass doors had been shattered during the process, and repairs had cost about £10,000. “All have been repaired except the sacristy door. This has been temporarily repaired while we await advice from the cathedral architect and specialist carpenters as to the best way to effect a permanent repair.”
Legacy withdrawn after Bell ‘cloud’ comment
CHICHESTER CATHEDRAL will miss out on a £50,000 legacy, after a benefactor changed his will in protest at the Archbishop of Canterbury’s refusal to clear the name of a former Bishop of Chichester, George Bell (News, 26 January), The Daily Telegraph reported last week. The benefactor, Christopher Hoare, of the Hoare banking dynasty, wrote in a letter to Archbishop Welby: “Sadly, your attitude in persisting that there is still a significant cloud over Bishop George Bell is so inexplicable that the £50,000 I had left to Chichester Cathedral will not be forthcoming until a building, now known as 4 Canon Lane, has its name restored to George Bell House.” Chichester Cathedral renamed the building after paying compensation to the complainant in the Bell case, “Carol”. Letters
Panorama documentary on Blackburn criticised
A BBC Panorama programme, White Fright: Divided Britain, broadcast on Monday night, presented an inaccurate picture of ethnic and religious diversity in Blackburn, bishops in the diocese have said. The Bishop of Blackburn, the Revd Julian Henderson, said that the report had failed to include representation from the faith communities in the city, and the steps that these groups were taking with the council to address community cohesion. “There are challenges of course, but Blackburn is not unique in that regard, and we are involved in many initiatives where people from different backgrounds live, work, play and associate together,” the Bishop said. The Suffragan Bishop of Burnley, the Rt Revd Philip North, said: “The programme contained a number of grave misunderstandings, one of the most serious of which involved ‘faith schools’. Many of our Church of England schools in Blackburn are in fact beacons of healthy community integration. . . [Some] have a majority of Muslim pupils and this provides a forum for cultures and faiths to learn from each other.”
THE CONSERVATION FOUNDATIONPlanting for the future: the head teacher at St Mary’s School, Bryanston Square, in London, Emily Norman, with the first tree given by the “Trees for Sacred Spaces” campaign run by the Conservation Foundation to plant trees and counter air pollution