The experience of praying for bishops to do right by LGBTQ+ people is a bit like putting my dog in the garden to pee: It ought to be easy, but you wouldn’t believe how long it can actually take in real life. Once again, I’m at the back door, in the cold, waiting. Dear Lord

Marcus Green, Chaplain, Worcester College, Oxford, Twitter 19 January

I can’t say where because the person who officiated did so without permission. It was someone I knew, it was lovely and a bit mad, in a locked church after hours

Richard Coles, on the illicit service of blessing for him and his late partner, David, The Times, 21 January

“This is not a welcoming Church, it’s degrading, shaming and against the gospel to be so excluding. . . I’ve stopped being able to make excuses for a Church that doesn’t treat people fairly

Ibid.

Members may wish to look at the Library briefing from 11 August 2022 to see that the Enabling Act of 1919, which established a General Synod as a way to stop Bills having to go through all the formal stages in the House of Commons, can be amended, and that some recent legislation wrongly gave permission for flying bishops and people under them to refuse to recognise women ordained in the Church of England. We are coming to a stage, on that and on this, where the Church of England needs to wake up

Peter Bottomley MP, exchange with the Second Church Estates Commissioner, 24 January

For me, and for many of my clergy friends and colleagues, we may understand the politics and the pragmatism, and the reality of the situation we find ourselves in. We may know it will only ever be a slow process towards inclusion, and this is the next stepping stone on the journey. Yet it still feels like a gut punch. It still feels like we are begging for our place at the table. It still feels like we’re worth fighting for, but only so far. The church may indeed be planning to apologise, but it continues to do the damage

Charlie Bell, The Guardian, 20 January

I might give it [champing i.e. church camping] a go. I love everything about churches: the architecture; the history; the stained glass; the hymns; the compassionate charity appeal posters; the tranquillity; the ethics. . . Oh, except the religion, I’m afraid. I hope there isn’t any of that. Should be OK if the vicar’s C of E

Robert Crampton, columnist, The Times, 24 January.

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