Blog: Successor search

In June, he hit the headlines after writing in a parish letter that people who failed to tackle climate change were acting like Josef Fritzl, the Austrian who locked his daughter in a cellar for 24 years.
He said at the time he was not accusing people of being child abusers but that shocking analogies were needed.
The Bishop of Lichfield, the Right Reverend Jonathan Gledhill, has started searching for a successor.
He said: “Although we fully understand and support his reasons for leaving us we feel a real sense of bereavement.”
The Bishop of Stafford is responsible for more than 480 clergy and lay ministers across 220 churches in north and east Staffordshire as part of the Diocese of Lichfield.
The Bishop of Stafford will stand down from his post next year because of bad health, it has been announced.
The Right Reverend Gordon Mursell, who has had three vocal cord operations in the past eight years, said he feared he could lose his voice altogether.
He will retire from the post in May 2010 when he will be 61 years old.
In a letter to his clergy, the bishop said he was retiring “with great sadness” but said it was a consequence of “talking too much”.
He said: “It appears that the cumulative ‘wear’ on my voice has left a permanent weakness, or vulnerability, in the area round the vocal cords – and it is clear that the long-term consequence has to be a really significant reduction in voice use.”

Tags: Successor