The annual See of Richborough Mass at S Albans Cathedral will be on Saturday 5th August 2017 at 12 noon. 

More details.

Bishop Geoffrey's funeral will take place in Chichester Cathedral on Wednesday 5 July at 2.30pm.  The liturgical arragments can be found here.

Bishop Tony Robinson, Chairman of the Council of Bishops said:

Bishop Geoffrey has been at the heart of the catholic voice within the Church of England for several decades but is also very well known and respected throughout Europe by many from other churches for his scholarship and commitment to ecumenical dialogue. Following a distinguished period as Fellow and Chaplain at Keble College, Oxford, Bishop Geoffrey has been a bishop since 1994, serving first at Basingstoke in the Diocese of Winchester and then as Bishop of Gibraltar in Europe since 2001. We shall miss his wisdom, experience and gentle guidance amongst the Bishops of The Society. 

 

Other Bishops of Society also paid tribute to Bishop Geoffrey.  Bishop Martin Warner, Bishop of Chichester said:

Geoffrey's long association with the Diocese of Chichester has been characterised by the generosity with which he shared his gifts of holiness, learning, and personal friendship. We shall miss his presence, his imaginative understanding of the past and of traditions that enrich our own, his humour, his hospitality, and his encouragement of younger scholars, lay and ordained, and the enthusiasm with which he helped them identify the value of their hopes and plans.

Geoffrey died as he had lived: in the rhythm of liturgical prayer, and fortified by the sacramental life that is the mark of a Catholic Christian.

Giving thanks for Geoffrey, we now pray that God will grant him “a holy rest, safe lodging, and peace at the last”. And in the resurrection may he enjoy the vision glorious that his longing eyes had so clearly glimpsed on earth.

 

Bishop Jonathan Goodall, Bishop of Ebbsfleet said:

It is with profound sorrow, but with a deep sense of gratitude, that I write to ask all the parishes in the Ebbsfleet family to pray for the repose of the soul of Bishop Geoffrey Rowell, who died peacefully (if suddenly) after a long illness, last Sunday morning, Trinity Sunday, 11 June.

We here in the Ebbsfleet office have many reasons to thank God for Geoffrey, as a friend as well as a bishop.   It was my joy as his chaplain to welcome and induct Geoffrey to his new role as Anglican Bishop of Gibraltar in Europe in 2001, and we worked together closely until, in 2005, I left to join Archbishop Rowan at Lambeth;  and for much of that period, Catherine, now my PA, was Geoffrey’s PA.  In the midst of a lot of hard work and travel, there was a great deal of laughter at the more absurd aspects of ministry across ‘a sixth of the world’s land surface’.  Thereafter Geoffrey and I worked together of course in many ways, taking every opportunity we could, to promote between the churches a patient and ever-deepening sense of communion.

All of Geoffrey’s best qualities were committed in the Lord’s service:  holiness, learning as much as teaching, a talent for culture as well as for friendship, long-sightedness and long-suffering, generosity in all things.  Although he was an unmistakeably catholic Christian, living in and from – and fascinated by! – the heritage of the whole Church, his best energy was given, of course, to nurturing and guiding Anglo-Catholic witness, through which God had given him so very much.  He longed and prayed deeply for The Society to renew that witness in and beyond the Church of England.   He will be very sorely missed;  but may his memory be eternal!

 

Bishop Philip North Bishop of Burnley tweeted: 

Really sad to hear of +Geoffrey Rowell's death. A great academic and a guardian of the best in Anglican tradition. He will be much missed.

With sadness we announce the death of Bishop Geoffrey Rowell who died on Trinity Sunday, 11 June 2017.   May he rest in peace

More details to follow later.

A group of representatives of The Society, led by the Bishops of Ebbsfleet, Fulham and Richborough, have held a seminar in Rome. Its purpose was to present and explain to an invited audience both the official provisions put in place to enable Anglican Catholics and Conservative Evangelicals to flourish within the Church of England following the ordination of women as bishops (notably in the House of Bishops’ Declaration) and The Society as the anglo-catholic structure which builds on those provisions. The group also included Dr Colin Podmore (Secretary of the Council of Bishops of The Society) and the Revd Ian McCormack.

The seminar was held at the Anglican Centre in Rome by kind permission of its Director, Archbishop David Moxon, who participated in the seminar with the Associate Director and the Director-designate, Archbishop Bernard Ntahoturi. The British Ambassador to the Holy See was also present. The Roman Catholic participants included staff members of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and other dicasteries of the Holy See, together with a number of Roman Catholics prominent in Anglican - Roman Catholic relations.

In addition to presentations by the members of the group and responses by Roman Catholic participants, the seminar also included a presentation by the Revd Alexander McGregor, Deputy Legal Adviser to the General Synod, on the legislation and the House of Bishops’ Declaration.

The Bishop of Ebbsfleet, the Rt Revd Jonathan Goodall, said, ‘The seminar has been a very positive experience, and warmly received. It has given us a valuable opportunity to set out for our friends and colleagues in Rome how The Society is responding, in an anomalous situation, to the challenges, on the one hand, of obedience to an ancient common ecclesiology we share with Roman Catholics, and on the other of confidence in those aspects of mutual recognition and witness we have with our fellow Anglicans. We are very grateful to the Anglican Centre for making it possible.’ 

Photos of the Seminar

The Council of Bishops encourages participation by Society parishes

Prayer lies at the heart of all we do as Christians, and in a church that is coming alive afresh to the priority of mission, that rootedness in prayer is more important than ever. This is why we are so keen that parishes of The Society play a part in the Archbishops’ initiative ‘Thy Kingdom Come'. Between Ascension and Pentecost, as we look for the coming of the Holy Spirit, we are invited to set time aside to pray for the evangelization of our nation. This time of focused prayer, which was held for the first time last year, has become a major ecumenical initiative. The Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales is committed to it, as are the majority of free churches. This year the National Pilgrimage to Walsingham will be a Beacon event.

We hope that you and your people will want to share in this huge wave of prayer. There will be many ways of doing this. You may want to offer Mass during the course of these ten days or hold some other public devotion. You may want to invite your people to share in ‘Thy Kingdom Come’ within their private devotions. You may well want to join in with other Society parishes or ecumenical partners to pray with others. Liturgical resources produced by the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham include:

• Vigil Service
• Eucharist Propers for The Mission of the Church
• The 40 Hours Devotion
• Eucharist Propers for Mary, Mother of the Mission of the Church
• The Rosary - Thy Kingdom Come

If you arrange something, you may also wish to register it on the Thy Kingdom Come website.

Parishes of The Society running events as part of this iniative are ecouraged to use the hashtags #TheSociety and #ThyKingdomCome when promoting them on social media.

+TONY WAKEFIELD

The Rt Revd Tony Robinson

Chairman of the Council of Bishops