Displaying items by tag: bishops

One month after a large group of black and minority-ethnic (BAME) clergy wrote a letter criticising the lack of non-white senior clergy in the CofE, Downing Street has announced the appointment of the first BAME bishop for twenty years. The next Bishop of Woolwich will be the Vicar of St John’s, Upper Holloway, Revd Woyin Karo­wei Dorgu. The 58-year-old was born and brought up in Nigeria, and worked as a GP before training for ordination. He has been Vicar of St John’s since 2000. ‘We are greatly honoured to be invited to share and contribute to this dynamic ministry of bringing God’s love to the people of Wool­wich and the diocese,’ Revd Dorgu said. Speaking to reporters, he said, ‘I want to encourage BAME vocations and more participation in ministry. I will celebrate the divers­ity in race, ability, gender, sexuality, and class. Celebrating our differ­ences is a gift.’

James Jones, the former Bishop of Liverpool, who chaired an independent panel of inquiry into the Hillsborough football disaster, has been knighted in the New Year Honours list for services to bereaved families and justice. Bishop Jones was widely praised for his chairmanship of the panel, which concluded that many of the deaths at Hillsborough might have been avoided with better medical care. Bishop Jones said that he had mixed emotions on accepting the KBE, ‘because of the enduring sadness of the families who continue to feel the loss of their loved ones’. The inquiry, he said, had been ‘very much the climax’ of his 15 years as Bishop of Liverpool. A Hillsborough protester, Professor Phil Scraton, who led the panel’s research team, revealed last week that he had turned down an OBE in protest at those who ‘remained unresponsive’ to the campaign for truth and justice.