Bishop of Liverpool seeks to expunge male and female from marriage
"I want to see a gender-neutral marriage canon, such as they have in the Episcopal Church or in the Scottish Episcopal Church," said the Rt Rev'd Paul Bayes, Bishop of…
Liturgy
Matthew Parris just wants to be loved, accepted, and buried in the CofE
Matthew Parris has written a strange a piece in the Times about the Church of England: 'Anglicanism was never really about God', he decrees, with a kind of semi-detached secular-papal journalistic infallibility. His Epistle to the Thundererarians drifts between theological…
Harry and Meghan were indeed married before their wedding ‘spectacle’
"Three days before our wedding, we got married," Meghan told Oprah, as she fed the hens and chickens. "No one knows that but we called the Archbishop and we just…
Law Commission ‘consultation’ on weddings is just another secularist push
This isn't a government consultation, though it has the authoritative whiff of one, and many people will doubtless mistakenly believe it to be one, but it is definitely not one:…
Sheffield Cathedral sacks choir – because God told them to
The Dean and Chapter if Sheffield Cathedral have sacked their choir, and this has caused a bit of a stir in the media and consternation on Twitter. They explain: For…
Church of England guidance used against Christian in court
There's something ever so slightly disquieting about this, but not for the reasons permeating the websites and chat-threads of Evangelical Christendom. Dr David Mackereth, who said in a Department of…
Following CofE guidance for gender transition services, bishops weigh the possibility of political transition services
The Church of England has issued new guidance for parishes planning gender transition services to help transgender people mark their transition to their new identity. Since there is now no…
Why, when church attendance is falling, is cathedral attendance soaring?
An email was delivered to Cranmer's Tower at 11.15am on Tuesday of this week. It was headed: 'Record numbers attend cathedrals at Christmas', followed by a very red, upper-case warning:…
BlessU-2: a robot priest and the parable of technological emptiness
"Bless me, Robot, for I have sinned." "Do you want to receive absolution in a male voice or a female voice?" The penitent presses a button on a touchscreen torso,…
Freemasons at Canterbury Cathedral: the hidden Masonic ritual in the Order of Service
Further to considerations of simony, syncretism and sacred service in the Tercentenary of English Freemasonry to be hosted by Canterbury Cathedral on Saturday 18th February, published below is the Order…
House of Bishops upholds canon law: marriage is the lifelong union of one man and one woman
After a seemingly interminable period of 'shared conversations' on the nature of marriage and the relational experiences of some LGBT Christians, the House of Bishops of the Church of England…
Church denounces Austria’s ‘far-right’ Norbert Hofer for campaign poster invoking God
Norbert Hofer is the presidential hopeful of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) in the forthcoming election (which is being re-run in December owing to previous electoral irregularities). The Freedom…
There's one surefire way of silencing objectors to women bishops – without changing the liturgy
There is a serial objector who pops up at the consecration of just about every woman bishop in the Church of England, and he isn't even an Anglican. The…
Cecil the Lion – a lesson in animal theology
A dentist called Walter Palmer has killed a lion called Cecil. Cecil the lion is now dead, and never has the world been so united in grief. Well, perhaps…
BBC 'Kill the Christians' – at last, thank God, but please don't leave it there
As regular readers of His Grace’s blog will be fully aware, the plight of Christians around the world is a subject that is discussed frequently on these pages. I…
Bishop Philip North – catholic continuity and ecclesial unity
On 7th November 2014, it was announced by The Prime Minister's Office, 10 Downing Street: "The Queen has approved the nomination of the Reverend Philip John North to the…
"What ceremony else?" Church of England to reform burial of suicides
"What ceremony else?" cries Laertes in Hamlet, as his dead sister Ophelia is buried to a single tolling bell with a meagre liturgy, as all suspected suicides used to…
How to prevent the extinction of the Church of England
If anyone isn’t aware that the Church of England is slowly walking down the statistical road to oblivion, the publication of the 2015 British Election Study last week should…