Bishop Hope Feels Renewed Going Back to a Priest's Life

On Wednesday evening, many attended the installation service of the ex-archbishop of York David Hope as a Yorkshire parish priest at St Margaret’s Church, Ilkley. He reflected on the recent change in his life to the Times newspaper.

Bishop Hope spoke honestly about leaving the post of Archbishop of York, and said that it had left him with a sense of "liberation and renewal". He was able to put mountains of church paperwork from the Archbishops’ Council, the General Synod, the House of Bishops standing committee and other bodies central to the Church of England’s governing structures on the skip "with great pleasurable abandon".

"I am going to stay strictly local," he said. "I am looking forward to getting on with the daily round of worship, visiting people, getting down to the basic work of a parish priest."

However, while the Anglican Church is still embattled with controversies over homosexuality, women bishops and so on, Bishop Hope said he will still be available to offer advice to the highest head of the Church Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams.

Dr Hope said, "My advice to the Archbishop of Canterbury is that he needs to know that he has the prayerful support of very many people. He should never forget that. He has done really well in trying to hold everything together."

Bishop Hope is looking with great hope towards the great ministry in St Margaret’s Church. In anticipation of attending the regular meetings of the parochial church council and other local parish groups, he commented that these would be full of light, peace and love, compared with what he had become used to at national level.

"St Margaret’s seems to be a really harmonious church," he added. "Obviously there is a range of views about different issues, but on the whole people seem to get along really well."