Newspaper letter of the day
It’s not, of course, the most outrageous detail to emerge from the Post Office scandal but it is certainly an eye-opening one.
It’s the revelation this week that former Post Office boss (and ex CBE) Paula Vennells was shortlisted to be Bishop of London back in 2017.
Vennells, whose application was apparently pushed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, is an ordained Anglican priest but does not hold a senior position in the Church of England.
Why are we wanging on about it, you may ask? Because it prompted this rather fabulous letter to The Times which is very definitely worth a minute of your time.
Great letter in today’s Times: pic.twitter.com/KlFa0Mqt9p
— John Inge (@BishopWorcester) January 11, 2024
Just in case that’s tricky to read in full.
Still, a bit unfair to compare Vennells to a pirate. Unfair to the pirate, that is.
Yes, history is fun but in 2017 the Church of England nearly gave its third-most senior job to someone who had innocent people put in prison. https://t.co/G0OUpqt5tY
— Callum May (@callummay) January 11, 2024
Did Bishop Lancelot falsely criminalise 700 innocent people and give staff bonuses to upper brass as rewards for complicity? Did Bishop Lancelot then get a CBE and write the management manual for the house of bishops? I think I’ll stick with the jolly pirate bish any day pic.twitter.com/ncWjJZdJOQ
— Rev Daniel French (@holydisrupter) January 11, 2024
The Church of England needs more ex-pirates https://t.co/yTaG6AxY3m
— Timandra Harkness (@TimandraHarknes) January 11, 2024
Actually, no. The letter is funny, but the present situation is anything but, and not to be compared. The PO story becomes more scandalous by the second, and the narrow escape that London had owes much to the fact that she was deeply embedded in the C of E’s management culture.
— Fr Mark Elliott Smith (@MarkElliottSmi1) January 11, 2024
Much as I’m in favour of Lancey B awareness: the key differences with Blackburne was that he was universally liked by his clergy and peers, personally decent to those in need despite his roguishness and didn’t come to power on the promise of dismantling a millennia of tradition. https://t.co/6PoaJI2bia
— Fergus Butler-Gallie (@_F_B_G_) January 11, 2024
A final thought.
Private school, Oxford, lived in Downing St and had a reputation for ‘carnality’ and ‘moral laxness’. An ancestor of Johnson? https://t.co/60tk2rT8Ds
— Plashing Vole (@PlashingVole) January 11, 2024
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Source @BishopWorcester
