New Bishops of Horsham and Lewes announced
TWO vacant sees are to be filled in the diocese of Chichester, it was announced on Wednesday. The next Suffragan Bishop of Horsham is to be the Revd Ruth Bushyager, Vicar of St Paul’s, Dorking, since 2014, and Area Dean of Dorking, in the diocese of Guildford. She will succeed the Rt Revd Mark Sowerby, who resigned in September. After training at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, Ms Bushyager was ordained priest in 2006, and served in the dioceses of Southwell & Nottingham and Oxford before becoming Kensington Area Missioner in London in 2010. Prebendary William Hazlewood will be the next Suffragan Bishop of Lewes, succeeding the Rt Revd Richard Jackson after his translation to Hereford (News, 6 September 2019). Prebendary Hazlewood has been the Vicar of Dartmouth and Dittisham, in Exeter diocese, since 2011, and is a Guardian of the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. Ordained priest in 2002, he served in Bristol and at Iver Heath, on the outskirts of Slough, before his present appointment. The Bishop of Chichester, Dr Martin Warner, said: “The announcement[s]. . . comes as a joyful pledge of hope and confidence in the Church’s mission beyond the painful restrictions that responding to the coronavirus pandemic demands of us.”
Archdeacon of Lindisfarne to be Dean of Derby
THE Archdeacon of Lindisfarne since 2008, the Ven. Peter Robinson, has been appointed to be the next Dean of Derby. He succeeds the Very Revd Dr Stephen Hance, who was appointed National Lead for Evangelism and Witness at Church House last year (News, 12 July 2019). Archdeacon Robinson currently chairs the board of education in Newcastle diocese. He worked in the oil industry before his ordination in 1995; he was trained at Cranmer Hall, Durham, and served his title in North Shields, and has been Priest-in-Charge of St Martin’s, Byker. He said on Monday: “My hope and prayer is that we will be able to reimagine the life of our cathedral in the years to come, to deepen its local impact and to serve the communities and parishes of the diocese.”
Ecclesiastical rated ‘most trusted home insurer’
ECCLESIASTICAL, the specialist church insurer, has been named the UK’s most trusted home-insurance provider by Fairer Finance, a consumer group, for the 11th time. Fairer Finance regularly surveys about 20,000 UK banking and insurance customers to compile a list of the top 50 providers. Ecclesiastical’s overall customer experience score increased by five per cent to 84 per cent in one year — ten per cent higher than its closest rival, Nationwide. Nationwide had a higher complaints performance rating (90 per cent compared with 88 per cent).
Church Commissioners write to Exxon shareholders
THE Church Commissioners and New York State Retirement Fund have written to ExxonMobil shareholders, urging them to use their votes to change Exxon’s approach to climate change and the “governance failures that underpin it”. The letter asks for votes for a report on lobbying, for proposals for an independent chair and against the re-election of the entire board. It states: “Our voting intentions are, again, a measure of our profound dissatisfaction with ExxonMobil’s approach to climate-change risks and the governance failures that underpin it. We believe that ExxonMobil can do so much better, and that a change in strategy and governance can bring about a long-overdue improvement in shareholder returns.”
Church’s restoration is Ken Dodd beneficiary
THE clock of St John the Evangelist, Knotty Ash, will chime again for the first time in 30 years thanks to a legacy from the entertainer Ken Dodd, who died, aged 90, in 2018 (News, 16 March 2018). Work has now started on restoring the church in Liverpool, where Mr Dodd lived and worshipped all his life. The church hall is also being renovated. His widow, Anne, told the Liverpool Echo on Tuesday: “It is lovely to see everything moving forward, and Ken would have been delighted. He loved the church, while the church hall is where he went to school.”