The Prime Minister’s Office has announced that the next Bishop of Doncaster will be the Revd Leah Vasey-Saunders; details are in the press release copied below. There is more on the Sheffield diocesan website here and here, and on the Blackburn diocesan website here.
Appointment of Suffragan Bishop of Doncaster: 29 May 2025
The King has approved the nomination of The Reverend Leah Beverley Vasey-Saunders, to the Suffragan See of Doncaster in the Diocese of Sheffield
From: Prime Minister’s Office, 10 Downing Street
Published 29 May 2025
The King has approved the nomination of The Reverend Leah Beverley Vasey-Saunders, Vicar of Lancaster Priory in the Diocese of Blackburn, to the Suffragan See of Doncaster in the Diocese of Sheffield in succession to the Right Reverend Sophie Jelley, following her translation to the See of Coventry.
Leah Vasey-Saunders was educated at Huddersfield University and trained for ministry at Cranmer Hall, Durham. She served her title at St. John’s Church, Whorlton and St George’s Church, Jesmond in the Diocese of Newcastle, and in 2004, was ordained Priest. From 2008, she served as Team Vicar of St. John’s Church Heath Hayes, Cannock, in the Diocese of Lichfield and was appointed Vicar in 2010. In 2013, she was appointed Priest-in-Charge of All Saints Church, Harworth and Bircotes, in the Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham.
From 2016, Leah served as Canon Precentor at Wakefield Cathedral, in the Diocese of Leeds. Leah is also the chair of trustees for On Fire Mission. Leah has served in her current role as Vicar of Lancaster Priory in the Diocese of Blackburn since 2021.
Leah is married to Mark and they have four children.
Ah, what fun. She did a placement with me during her training 20-plonk years ago, and seemed to be exceptionally good value…..
Leah likes to keep moving …
The Benedictine concept of stabilitas is one I would love to introduce to such people.
Too late! I don’t believe it continued to apply once they became bishops and these good Benedictines became the King of the times’s elite Civil Servants ….
But there is illuminating discussion about bishops in the thread below.
Not everyone is called to be a Benedictine…
So you prefer instability?
But Benedictine principles can be very apposite to Christian life and priestly formation.
Indeed, and recognising one’s charism is an important part of ministry. From a clerical POV, it’s possible (I hope) to have an honourable ministry both after the manner of the Friars Minor, staying long enough to catalyse change and then moving on, and after that of the Benedictine which may spend many years nurturing identity and relationships. A friend of mine of Benedictine tendency bemoaned the five-year-team-vicar system, for (he felt) by the end of the second year you’d just about got to know your people well enough to start ministering to them properly, but after another eighteen months, with… Read more »
Quite! This is one of those TA threads I hope ‘such people’ manage to avoid seeing.
A contemporary of mine would get back from their licensing service and open the Church Times at the situations vacant column. The thing I loved about parish ministry was the enduring relationships with parishioners. I loved that it took an hour to post a letter; admiring the dahlias, hearing about someone’s recent op, hoofing the football back on to the pitch where the children were playing.
Over 100 years the Methodist ministers moved on after a year. Higher worshipping numbers in those days!
I’m glad I’m an Anglican. Their children must have hated the disruption to their education and friendships. The cost of all those house moves too.
Dean – Comments appreciated and understood, including moves. At least the Methodist Church never had to deal with ‘Bishop’s Move’!
I grew up In a Methodist manse. Although ministers are Invited for 5 years. You only really get 3 years because you get a year to settle in. Then a year to eighteen months of work then year 4 to 5 the minister knows they are not wanted or looking for a new church
I think the nearest thing one can get to for Benedictine Stability for Priests, is the system they have in my Church the Roman Catholic Church where Priests at their Ordination are by the Vow of Canonical Obedience made to the Bishop “To me and my Successors” are incardinated into the Diocese they are ordained into and they do not move from Diocese to Diocese. This Discipline of Clerical Incardination certainly has its roots in the Benedictine Vow of Stability. The only time a Priest might leave the Diocese of his incardination is if he is asked by the Holy… Read more »
What about the New Testament concept of apostolic missionary travelling? Or a Christlike itinerant ministry?
…and…?
Permit the man a little nostalgia!
And thereby immersing yourself into the life and culture of the community, learning about the lives and concerns of real people. Fulfilling the vision of the Reformers that we should be the ‘people’s church’ , ensuring that your prayers are rooted in community life. Something to do with ‘following the example of the Good Shepherd’ and facilitating the incarnations presence of the Church in the Community. That’ll do for week One. And there’s more
The Good Shepherd didn’t stay in one community for long.
Presumably like the Good Shepherd, only unmarried clergy without children would be suitable.
Well, that would count me in.
But I’m not arguing that all clergy should move a lot – merely that those who do are following honourable precedents. Who are we to criticise the vocation of another of Christ’s servants?
Yes, but while he did he spent his time being the Good Shepherd and not the rather bossy sheepdog which nips at the heels of the sheep. Mind you, as a fed up colleague said to me on Cleethorpes Seafront. ‘I suppose part of the job of the good shepherd is to send some of the sheep off to the butchers’.!
Psalm 23?
Dear me! It was a rather cryptic comment coming from a time of frustration and not made by me. I just offered it as having an element of accuracy and wasn’t trying to construct a theology of public ministry out of it.
The Good Shepherd nipped at the heels of the traders in the Temple.
Yes. I can think of one or two who might have deserved a bit of that.
I would hazard a guess that that was the most profound statement ever made on Cleethorpes Seafront.
Oh, I don’t know. Bishop John Brown retired there, and presumably had the odd conversation on the prom.
I think it was Voltaire who commented ‘Society needs butchers as well as shepherds.’ I was on an interview panel many years ago and asked candidates for their observation on the dictum. At least one of them froze!
Remember being on a Grubb Insitute course years ago. We were all clergy -:very nice to each other – but there had obviously deep tensions. We got to the last morning plenary and the facilitator interjected ‘And what about Anger’. ‘Anger’ we said ‘ we’re not angry’.
‘Yes, you are’ he said ‘you’re all bloody furious with each other. And you’ll make no headway until you own it and deal with it’.
As I look back on a few years in ministry I would say that middle class niceness is one of the scourges of the church.
I learnt a long time ago in a career in private commerce to be more cautious with the smiling manager than the grumpy one.
Anger is often a power for the good. We ought and should get angry. Jesus got angry. Many times. How can you strive after righteousness without getting angry? The only (??!!) danger with anger is that it can blind one when eliciting root causes or identifying solutions.
Never be deceived by appearances!
‘This is no other than the house of God. And this is the gate of heaven’ . An apt description of Cleethorpes Seafront as the sun rises over the estuary.
Happiness is contagious.
It wouldn’t be Thinking Anglicans if most of the responses to the appointment of a new bishop weren’t negative…
Tall poppy syndrome?
Maybe.
I do miss the comments of the late Fr Ron and Prof Monkhouse on this forum.
Part of the problem Tim is that in England we are mobbed with bishops. We have more senior clergy than at any point in our history but with declining numbers attending church and of clergy in parochial ministry. These sunny announcements that Mr or Mrs So and So are the best thing since sliced bread grate a little.
I incline to the opposite view. We mob bishops. TA threads have always revealed an abiding preoccupation with all things episcopal.
Yes.
On a somewhat related note, this morning my wife and I were talking about her habit (given that she can never remember the names of the churches in our diocese!) of referring to parishes as ‘Sue’s church’ or ‘Jonathan’s church’ (after the names of the rectors, which she does remember!). But we both agreed that it would never even occur to her to refer to the church we currently attend, Lendrum Mennonite Church, as ‘Sherri’s church’. The relationship between Mennonite pastors and the congregations they serve is quite different.
That’s interesting.
Of course, the possessive can denote belonging or connection (my bank, Chris’s solicitor) as well as ownership or leadership. But your wife clearly isn’t using the possessive in that way with regard to the churches. What’s different about Mennonite pastors, compared with Canadian Anglicans?
Mennonites (in our experience) really take ownership—as a congregation—of the ministry in their church. And they don’t tend to see their pastors as leaders. There is a congregational leadership in place (both official and unofficial), and the pastor has to be wise about relating to it. At our AGM and other congregational meetings, for instance, the pastor doesn’t sit at the front – that role is taken by the moderator and other board leadership. Our pastor is the most frequent preacher at our church, but there are others who preach regularly too, and more who do so occasionally. And our… Read more »
So what is a Mennonite pastor’s role?
My spiritual director advised me when I was a curate to have as little to do with bishops as possible and although it took me a little while to cotton on it was wise advice. After all they’re strange beasts; they talk about radical inclusivity for lgbtqi people and then frustrate that outcome at every turn; they lecture parish clergy about safeguarding but then make it abundantly clear that those rules are only for the little people; some even say they’re orthodox but are remarried divorcees. I’m chortling at the idea of being able to mob a bishop! One of… Read more »
You are perhaps not aware I am married to a bishop. So, call me biased, but I will not be taking your director’s advice. No doubt there was a context to that comment but it reads to me as a recipe for cynicism and ministry is quite tough enough without that infection. Another bishop is to be announced today and I confess I am rather dreading the news appearing on TA.
I think you are biased and my experience of bishops coincided with my director’s. I gave each new one the benefit of the doubt but they invariably conformed to type. I’m assuming that you’re married to a woman. Gay clergy are fed up with the bishops mealy mouthed hand wringing. I was out as gay even as an ordinand but soon after ordination I realised that these men (they were only men in those days) were nothing more than warm words and empty gestures. I reject your accusation of cynicism – it is the bishops who are supremely cynical –… Read more »
I am licensed in a diocese with less than fifty parishes, so you don’t look mobbed to me. I love the fact that my bishop has time to develop close relationships with clergy and people. From where I’m sitting, Church of England dioceses look enormous and impersonal, and I can’t begin to imagine how bishops there could actually do their jobs. Perspective, I guess.
I wish her well. The Doncaster part of the Sheffield diocese, according to the profile produced for the appointment of the Bishop of Sheffield some years ago and pre-covid, is an area of small, ageing congregations. The large, well resourced churches are in the west of the diocese.
Leah will move onwards and upwards. She is strategic .
Not sure what “onwards and upwards” means in this context, but I do know that Sheffield diocese has received additional funding. Praying for revival in the diocese as a whole.
Did +Croft, and his Fresh Expressions, nor the putative +North of Sheffield, nor the ‘issues’ surrounding music and choirs not bring revival? May it not be beyond an ‘appointment’, but a gift ot the Holy Spirit, soon?
Not sure of the meaning of your comment. Revival is always a work of the Holy Spirit.
Indeed Bob. It was not the work of +Croft, nor of +North, nor of any choir or music group in Sheffield, nor will it be of +Vasey-Saunders nor +Jelley or any on any upward trajectory, nor indeed of additional funding. I expect the Holy Spirit to descend where and when it will, regardless of ‘merit’