I am visiting a family who have no carpet, no settee, who had no gas, no electric, no food. That broke my heart, because nobody cared for them. They fell through the crack

Alex Frost, Burnley Vicar of Habergham Eaves with Holy Trinity, Burnley, in a BBC interview, 2 December

I have a lot of conversations with quite well-to-do ladies in the south of England, saying they didn’t know this was going on; they just didn’t know. That has been quite stark for me. People didn’t know that this level of poverty is around in our own country

Alex Frost, on responses to the BBC interview, 8 December

No one should be blocked from getting a life-saving vaccine because of the country they live in or the amount of money in their pocket. But, unless something changes dramatically, billions of people around the world will not receive a safe and effective vaccine for Covid-19 for years to come

Anna Marriott, Oxfam health policy manager, 8 December

The science of consciousness is mysterious, and I think that spirituality and science are merging in some ways these days. That’s a really interesting thing to be open to. Basically, it’s about opening your heart

Gail Bradbrook, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, Woman’s Hour, Radio 4, 8 December

Gender-based violence isn’t just happening somewhere else: it’s happening everywhere, including among us. Church communities are not immune

Olivia Graham, Bishop of Reading, 6 December

Help me out here, Twitter. Are these (unsurprisingly unnamed) critics suggesting a public broadcaster should be impartial between racism and anti-racism? Or between black lives mattering and not?

David Walker, Bishop of Manchester, responding to a Mail story about Dawn French, as Vicar of Dibley, taking the knee, “in a move critics say could undermine the BBC’s impartiality. . .”

One of the huge challenges that the Church of England faces is [the] diffused structure, with confused lines of accountability and line management, to some degree

Justin Humphreys, CEO of the safeguarding charity Thirtyone:eight, Sunday, Radio 4, 6 December

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