An Open Letter to the bishops of the Anglican Church of Australia with a plea to the Primate RECONCILIATION has become a keynote Australian concern, both at a political and at an ecclesiastical level. The ‘reconciliation process’, socially and politically, [...]

"He is not better; he is much the same" ONE DOESN'T OFTEN get a chance to say "I told you so," so I want to note that I predicted before the Lambeth Conference (in the June 1998 "Letter from America") [...]

Performance Related Clergy? JUDGING BY NEWS REPORTS recently, teachers are not very happy at the moment. A government minister has just offered each of them up to £2000 a year (of our money) as part of a performance based pay [...]

Quadriphobia IN A PREDICTABLE (and predictably unsatisfactory) statement, the Primates of the Anglican Communion, meeting in Oporto in March, have defined what they take to be the outer limits of Anglicanism: "We believe that the unity of the Communion as [...]

ANY OPORTO IN A STORM. Those who were privileged to be at Lambeth 98 will never forget the huge teams of clerical press officers and spin doctors whose task was to ensure favourable (or at least neutral) coverage in the [...]

Love Begins at Home BROWSING THROUGH a book the other day a piece of paper fell out. On it was written these words by Mother Teresa of Calcutta, "How can you say that you love God who you cannot see, [...]

Funerealities II MY WIFE ALWAYS says that if she were a bishop (and under the present dispensation she is a more likely candidate than any other member of the editorial board) her first move would be to spend a week, [...]

CAUTION NOTICE! Everybody is permitted to reproduce this column - but with a Health Warning: NOTHING IN THIS COLUMN SHOULD BE RELIED UPON AS FIRM EVIDENCE FOR ANYTHING. All facts or opinions expressed herein are purely interim. They are constantly [...]

Gerry O'Brien deplores an economic system which rewards sloth IT WAS BACK in November, in a Synod Insider article entitled "Of Chiefs and Indians", that I raised the issue of how many bishops and other dignitaries the Church of England [...]

Charles Raven comments on the Kidderminster stance SINCE SEPTEMBER last year St John's Kidderminster has been receiving a surprising amount of media attention. We are an ordinary parish church, growing but not spectacularly, in a relatively obscure corner of north [...]