These articles were first published in our April edition of the newspaper, click here for more.
A weekly Sunday service will no longer be compulsory for churches, after a vote to change a 400-year-old law was passed by the Church of England’s ruling body in late February.
General Synod voted to end the law – dating back to 1603 – which required priests to hold a Sunday service in every church they looked after. The Bishop of Willesden, who proposed the change, called it ‘out of date’.
The Prison Service is to stop many trans-gender inmates, including sex offenders, serving their sentences in women’s prisons, it was reported in early March.
The Government is ‘revising’ guidelines that state the ‘great majority’ of trans prisoners should be allowed to ‘experience the system in the gender in which they identify’. Options under consideration include ‘clustering’ trans prisoners in special wings or sections of wings. This comes after females were assaulted by a ‘woman’ with male genitals in a women’s prison.
A ‘man’, who was born a woman is trying to be registered as a father on ‘his’ child’s birth certificate, it was reported on 14 February.
The ‘man’ became pregnant after undergoing successful fertility treatment. He is taking the General Registrar and the Government to court after he was told he had to be cited as the child’s mother, not father, on the birth certificate.
A petition was launched in the winter to attempt to obtain a UK parliamentary debate on the link between drug use and violence.
The petition, https://petition.parliament. uk/petitions/231109 notes that in recent high-profile murder cases, cannabis use has been referenced. A study back in 2002 showed cannabis use increases the risk of both the incidence of psychosis in psychosis-free persons and a poor prognosis for those with an established vulnerability to psychotic disorder.
Moves in the House of Lords to attack religious liberty safeguards on same-sex marriage and to impose it on Northern Ireland were dropped in early March.
The debates came at the Report Stage of a Bill to introduce civil partnerships for heterosexual couples. Lord Faulkner’s amendment was designed to undermine the ‘quadruple lock’, in particular how it protects Anglican clergy. Lord Hayward’s change would have required regulations to introduce same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland.
Andrew Chard was appointed Director for International Partnerships at Wycliffe in February.
The new leadership position will involve the strategic development of Wycliffe’s partnerships internationally. He will also be looking to develop new partnerships with communities that do not yet have the Bible in their
In March, Lord Alton of Liverpool called for the UK Government to introduce a law requiring parents to be informed if their child has an abortion.
An ITV soap story shocked parents as it revealed that under-16s are allowed to consent to an abortion without anyone informing their parents. The law states that if an under-16 is able to provide clear consent, they can have an abortion without telling their parents.
The Revd Dr Peter Sanlon was welcomed as the Free Church of England’s (FCE) newest full-time rector in February.
Having announced that he intends to resign from his post in the Church of England, Peter will continue giving himself full-time to developing Emmanuel Anglican Church, the FCE church he planted in Tunbridge Wells just over a year ago. Peter is an experienced CofE minister and former tutor at Oak Hill College.