Thinking Anglicans

Bishop of Worcester announces his retirement

The Rt Revd John Inge, the Bishop of Worcester since 2008, has announced that he will retire on 9 October 2024. Details are on the diocesan website.

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Clifford Jones
Clifford Jones
5 months ago

A warm and moving announcement of the retirement on the diocesan website.

Kate Keates
Kate Keates
5 months ago

I follow John on X. Nice chap. I wish him well.

Michael Hopkins
Michael Hopkins
5 months ago

I’m a great admirer of his, even more so since he conferred my doctorate at Lambeth, under delegation from ++Cantuar. He’ll be much missed, and i wish him a long and happy retirement.

Clifford Jones
Clifford Jones
Reply to  Michael Hopkins
5 months ago

I see that that was in 2021.

God 'elp us all
God 'elp us all
5 months ago

Looking forward to the election of a Regional Bishop of Gloucester, Hereford and Worcester, in due course … courtesy of a governance review by the Dioceses Commission

rural liberal
rural liberal
Reply to  God 'elp us all
5 months ago

Funny county Worcestershire – the north end has got far more in common with Birmingham and the Black Country than it has with the West Country. And when local government merged Herefordshire and Worcestershire in 1973 it just led to 20-odd years of unhappy marriage and near permanent agitation from both sides to have nothing to do with the other*. Worcestershire and Herefordshire get on far better as neighbours than they ever did as relatives.

*IIRC Herefordshire resented being treated as the poor relation, and Worcestershire disliked union with a poor relation!

ALLAN SHEATH
ALLAN SHEATH
Reply to  rural liberal
5 months ago

My father (a surveyor with Worcestershire CC at the time) said that if whoever thought the merger was a good idea had stood on the top of the Malvern Hills, looked to the east then to the west, they would have seen two very different counties. Shades of parish reorganisations done off an archdeacon’s map.

God 'elp us all
God 'elp us all
Reply to  rural liberal
5 months ago

The three dioceses (Gloucester, Hereford and Worcester) have a combined population of 1.92million (https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2023-11/statisticsformission2022.pdf). That’s still fewer than in 8 of the 44 CofE dioceses (Chelmsford, Lichfield, London, Manchester, Oxford, St Albans, Southwark and Leeds). The stats also show that the usual Sunday Attendance across England has declined by a third over 13 years, from 824,000 in 2009 to 557,000 in 2022, while the number of diocesan bishops has been painfully reduced by two, from 46 to 44 (less than 5%). Retirements make ‘efficiency gains’ easier to achieve with less pain. Why is the Dioceses Commission not commissioned to undertake… Read more »

Perry Butler
Perry Butler
Reply to  God 'elp us all
5 months ago

A diocese needs to be a reasonable geographical size. It is the suffragans that should be cut esp with fewer confirmations.

Jane Charman
Jane Charman
5 months ago

I first met Bishop John when he arrived as Residentiary Canon of Ely Cathedral in the 1990s. I know him to be a person of integrity who ‘walks his talk’, including standing with characteristic gentle firmness against the tide of managerialism that has swept away some of the foundations of the Church of England, and a number of less principled bishops with it. He has considerable theological credibility and his book, A Christian Theology of Place, was a timely contribution to discussions about the enduring significance of parishes and their churches. Sadness and loss in his personal life have not… Read more »

Stephen Griffiths
Stephen Griffiths
Reply to  Jane Charman
5 months ago

I appreciate this comment about John Inge’s stance on managerialism. It must have been hard for him and other bishops who share that conviction to bear with the managerialism that has emerged during Justin Welby’s tenure. There is a lot of work for the next Archbishop of Canterbury to do to reset the culture within some of the central institutions. If General Synod wasn’t so engulfed and exhausted by battling with LLF/PLF and safeguarding issues it might have been able to push back against the creeping centralisation which has developed while they were busy. From the outside it seems that… Read more »

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