NOMINATION OF THE BISHOP OF WARRINGTON

Together for the Church of England are delighted to welcome the nomination of
Simon Robinson, Dean of Truro, as the next Bishop of Warrington. As well as cathedral
responsibility, Dean Simon brings strong experience from his career in education, and
his leadership of the priestly Sodality of Mary.

For Together his nomination is especially significant in giving England a bishop who is
the child of a working-class single-parent family, a survivor of church-based abuse,
and an openly gay man. All these are aspects of lived experience which need to be
better represented in the Church’s leadership, as they will be in Simon.

For over 20 years since Jeffrey John withdrew from his nomination as Bishop of
Reading, there has been an apparent taboo inhibiting the selection of gay candidates
for consecration. Bishop Ruth and Archbishop Stephen have now broken the bar, and
we rejoice. Simon’s openness sets a model which we hope will come to be widely
followed among the episcopate.

The wider debate about inclusion in the Church of England will of course continue,
especially at the forthcoming General Synod elections. We believe that the readiness
of Together to sustain the debate and refuse to allow the question of full inclusion for
LGBTQ+ members of the Church to fall silent has helped to make Simon’s nomination
possible. We look forward to working with him in the future to build a steadily more
inclusive Church of England.