Church of England bishops met informally this week, and issued the following press release.
Bishops’ Meeting – Monday October 12 to Wednesday October 14
14/10/2026
Bishops spend time reflecting on interfaith relationships, safeguarding and increasing vocations to ordained ministry among other topics at informal meeting of House members.
Following the dissolution of General Synod in July, the House of Bishops, as a house of the General Synod, is dissolved until November 17. In its absence a ‘Bishops’ Meeting’, at the invitation of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, took place in person from Monday October 12 to Wednesday October 14.
The meeting did not handle any of the formal business which has to be dealt with by the synodical House, such as approving formal guidance, but focussed on discussion of emerging work and matters of common concern across the Church.
In a session on interfaith relationships in local communities, the Bishops shared positive stories from their dioceses of working together with other faith representatives, as well as the particular concerns of their own local communities. They agreed on the vital importance of relationship building and enabling others to have difficult conversations, and they examined how the Church could work for the common good at a time of increased societal division.
The meeting heard an update on ongoing work on Church of England safeguarding. It began by noting the significant improvement in safeguarding provision and training over the past 15 years and recognising the enormous culture change in the Church during that period. Attendees heard that since 2016 there have been 850,000 instances of people being trained in safeguarding, and consistency of provision and knowledge has improved significantly across the Church.
Bishop Joanne Grenfell gave an update on the work being done by the Safeguarding Structures Programme Board. The Bishops also heard an update from Robert Springett, lead advocate Bishop for safeguarding, on the development of the Managing Safeguarding Allegations and Concerns Code of Practice and on the Church of England Redress Scheme.
The Bishops discussed the work being undertaken on the governance and culture of the House of Bishops. Topics included relationships and behaviours, how to work well together and encourage a diversity of voices as well as any practical changes needed to help increase Standing Committee transparency.
The Bishops discussed vocations in the Church of England following a renewed focus on how to encourage those considering a call to ordination. They discussed what they had noticed locally, and the relationship with theological education institutions.
Work being done on episcopal appointments and vocational discernment was outlined, including how best to ensure candidates are developed and equipped to enter the discernment process. Those taking part in the discussions noted the cost of long vacancies and shared experiences of identifying and encouraging candidates for episcopal ministry.
The Bishops received broad updates on current pieces of work from across the Church, including on the progress of taking forward the ongoing work on relationships, sexuality and gender; Programme Spire; and global conflict from Bishop Hugh Nelson and Bishop Flora Winfield.
On the final day the meeting discussed the National Funding for Diocesan Ministry Review. The Review was commissioned in response to the motion passed by Synod in July 2025 to examine the Church’s approach to resourcing diocesan ministry for the future, including questions of sustainability, ministry capacity and the effectiveness of current funding arrangements.
More area wide BMO’s would help overcome many of the blockages to mission within parishes.
and create safeguarding headaches
I think the safeguarding issues have already been addressed by bishops, but this is about safeguarding the ministry of Jesus which is under threat in many parishes. I see banning temporary baptisteries is the latest!
I notice in this press release the continuing tendency to preface bishops’ names with “Bishop”. I do not go around referring to myself as “Priest Liam Beadle” and if I did, people would think it strange. Given the dangers of deference, might this queer (and quite modern) habit be retired?
You might well refer to yourself as Father Liam Beadle or Rev Liam Beadle. If you were a Bishop you would be called Liam Beadle Bishop of X or Bishop Liam Beadle or Right Rev Liam Beadle. I don’t see the point of insisting that your are Mr Liam Beadle if you are a Priest or a Bishop. That would imply you are ashamed of your ordination or calling to be a Minister.
This also plays beautifully in the hands of our modern Secular Press, who seem to be either ignorant or are doing this deliberately in referring to Bishops as “Mr” or “Mrs” and not using their Episcopal titles, and referring to the Archbishop of York as “Mr Cotterell” not Archbishop Cotterell, nor Archbishop Stephen just plain Mr Cotterell. Roman Catholic Clergy will not tolerate their Bishops being referred to in this way by the Secular Press and by in the 1990’s when the late Cardinal Keith O Brien Archbishop of St Andrew’s and Edinburgh, when he was just Archbishop O Brien… Read more »
O’Brien is a terrible choice for why anyone should use preferred clerical titles.
In Spring 2015 Pope Francis accepted the resignation of disgraced Scottish Cardinal Keith Patrick OʼBrien from the rights and duties of a cardinal, which is not done lightly. Indeed Archbishop Leo Cushley of Saint Andrews and Edinburgh in a March 20 statement went on to say “Cardinal OʼBrien’s behaviour distressed many, demoralised faithful Catholics and made the Church less credible to those who are not Catholic.”
In my parish, you would be called Father Liam – no different, just an honorific for your status. Unless you are a trendy evangelical!
I absolutely agree with you. We should all make a point of addressing bishops simply by name – it’s not good for them to be continually Bishop So-and-so’ed – just as we do likewise nowadays in other professions. Pandering to male status anxiety and its preoccupation with titles, positions, status has not proved healthy for the Church.
I think it would be correct to refer initially, for example, to the Bishop of Worcester, and thereafter to Bishop Nelson. I agree with Vicar Beadle that Bishop + Christian Name + Surname is somewhat otiose.
Was the Bishops’ meeting open to all serving stipendiary bishops in the Church of England
( who collectively I understand form the College of Bishops) or just the members of the House of Bishops of the last General Synod?
In my personal experience the Church of England can be very bad at “encouraging those considering a call to ordination”. Of course not everyone what wants to be ordained should be accepted for training and subsequent ordination. But I know of an outstanding candidate in the Diocese in Europe who was blocked. Not only that but she was offered zero support either locally or by the Diocese. There was no appeal and no way forward so now she is forced to look to another denomination.
” The Bishops discussed vocations in the Church of England following a renewed focus on how to encourage those considering a call to ordination ” Well I bet that a brief discussion going by how little help I had in moving forward within the church. I found a very hostile and negative attitude with one priest telling me if your face doesn’t fit you won’t progress. The awful bitterness towards sellable married gay men in wanting to become priests has to change the same way it did when it allowed women in.
“If your face doesn’t fit you won’t progress…” That resonates. I’m effectively an unemployed priest. If you look closer there are plenty of us – often hidden in plain sight as ‘self supporting’ or PTO. Why the Church doesn’t make better use of the clergy it has, I don’t know. From personal experience, once they get the idea that you’ll work without pay, it’s endless excuses to make sure you’re trapped and stuck. People get fed up, exploited and bitter. They walk away. Others see it and (rightly) it puts others off of exploring vocation. They don’t want to end… Read more »
Why are we constrained by these legalities? If the bishops had any oomph they would just go ahead and if necessary cange the rules. We should be episcopably governed and not bound by ecclesiatical rules. Longing for abrave one to break out of the soggy consensus. How we miss +Alan Wilson!
Concerning the titles for clergy. I grew up in a low-church TEC diocese in the American South. Priests were commonly addressed as “Mr. Smith.” In a low-church diocese, they would never be referred as “Fr.” and Episcopalians were snobbishly proud that their clergy were also never referred to (at least by Episcopalians) as “Rev.” Bishops were informally addressed as “Bishop Smith” but more formally it was common to refer to them as “Dr. Smith” since the usual TEC custom was for their seminary to grant them an honorary doctorate soon after they had been consecrated. My knowledge of older English… Read more »
Jane Austen. daughter and sister of clergy (although I think her brother was ordained after her death), invariably referred to the clergy in her novels as”Mr.”
Anything other than “Mr” would have been unthinkable until the later 19th century, and for nearly all places until at least the mid 20th century. Even in the pretty Anglo-Catholic church of my childhood the clergy were known as “Mr surname” to adults and children alike. That’s the 1960s. The address “Father” came via Franciscanism into the wider Roman Catholic Church in, I think, the mid-19th century, and thence into Anglo-Catholicism in the later 19th and early 20th centuries. It’s still very far from mainstream. But meanwhile the trend in society away from addressing people by their surnames means that… Read more »
I am curious about the term “father” and would be interested to hear what people think about it. Having worked in health, then generic functional titles like “doctor” and “nurse” seem common and sensible. You can say “yes doctor” or “Excuse me nurse” in conversation without knowing the person’s name. In the same way I always try to say “thank you, driver” when stepping off a bus. The term respects and acknowledges the work and skill that each person offers, without necessarily making any claim to hierarchy. Within the church, functional titles like “bishop” or “vicar” would appear similar. Yet… Read more »
Have to say that I decline to use ‘Father’ prefix, or ‘Mother’ – it is childish.
However, for ConEvos who are seriously biblical about status of women I revert to navy-speak & simply call them Padre, which for some reason seems to annoy them.
I try not to be negative. I know some fantastic priests who choose to use Father and (one in particular) Mother. I was just fascinated by Simon Kershaw’s comments about how this was a relatively recent change.
Consultant surgeons and Army Officers are still quite happy with “Mr”, and no-one doubts their status.
“Father”…. though I’d never use it the word does have proper contexts of use.
“1 Corinthians 4:15:”For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.”
…speaking as a “Presbyter” I don’t really see why “Priest” has stuck though. After all no individual is named that in the New Testament. In this the ASB Ordination Service was helpful…. “Priest also known as Presbyter”. 😉
That Corinthians “father” reference is helpful, thank you.
I had always thought that priest and presbyter were both derived from Greek, through Latin, for the word meaning “elder”, which could be a lay role.
That’s why I find it fascinating. The constructs about “priesthood”, and the words used, seen to drift over the centuries.
Yes, a lot of iereus/sacerdos conceptuality gets smuggled in to the understanding of presbuteros.
Priesthood, NT wise, belongs in one sense to Jesus, and in another to all God’s people. With no need or space for an intermediate limited human priesthood to mediate between them.
Was there “priesthood” in the NT, or at least in the gospels? I can’t help but see the apostles (messengers), and in fact Jesus, as mendicant holy men, wandering the towns offering healing and teaching and simple rituals in return for a couple of nights of bed and board. A tradition common in the mystery religions of the time.
So perhaps iereus, but not sacerdos (that was the rabbis in the temple).
Were the rabbis in the Temple or the Synagogue?
Both/And
My understanding is that rabbis were in the synagogue, serving the local community most of the year, but for a couple of weeks they were called to the Temple to carry out
duties there, which required a greater degree of ritual purity.
Hence the inclusion of a priest in the Good Samaritan Parable. He was going down from Jerusalem at the end of his period of service, and so the the requirement for cleanliness should not have superceded the duty to save a life.
I thought that “priest” in the Temple period, a cohen, refers to a member of the tribe of Levi, and more specifically to a descendant of Zadok. To be a priest was to be a member of an hereditary caste. Presiding in the Temple was the prerogative of the Sadducees, i.e. the descendants of Zadok. They were assisted by other members of the tribe of Levi, descendants of Aaron. A Pharisee or rabbi, on the other hand, need not be a cohen or a Levite. Jesus himself was called “rabbi” sometimes, and he was held to be a descendant of… Read more »
Thank you Simon. That is a valid comment and clarification. Is it that the word rabbi simply means master or teacher and, like the word priest, can be used in various different contexts? And the word priest does not map exactly onto any of the Jewish contexts. One context is the hereditary duty to serve in the temple, and when not on duty there to fulfil the religious duties for your local community, which may be some distance from Jerusalem. Another context is to be a generic teacher or preacher, without such hereditary background. I note that in the NT… Read more »