Personal ambition may have motivated some bishops to keep quiet before the Archbishop of Canterbury announced his resignation last week, the Bishop of Newcastle, Dr Helen-Ann Hartley, has suggested.
Dr Hartley was the only bishop in the Church of England to call publicly on Archbishop Welby to resign before it was announced (News, 15 November).
On Sunday, she told Sky News that she was disappointed that other colleagues had not joined her call, and that she knew of some who “privately were discerning that it was probably the right thing for the Archbishop to resign”.
She suggested that there was “a culture of silence and fear among the Bishops”, and that some might have chosen not to speak out because of a fear of being “reprimanded or rebuked”.
“We’re now in a period of transition and reflection. One of those reflections will be what sort of person we’re looking for to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury, and what our expectations are of that person.” https://t.co/2Gsu6rCeez
— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) November 21, 2024
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