May 2025

Sudan and South Sudan Partnership – A time of crisis

We have been fortunate to celebrate a peaceful Easter in our land, we find Sudan and South Sudan in probably the most desperate state in more than 25 years of our half century of partnership. This Spring marks the second anniversary of the conflict in Sudan, and the BBC has reported that fighting between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has claimed more than 150,000 lives. The UN calls it the world’s largest humanitarian crisis in which some 12 million people have been forced to flee their homes, creating new crises particularly in neighbouring Chad and South Sudan. 

As the conflict intensified, Archbishop Ezekiel Kondo, his family and staff were forced to flee and with other supporters we helped him re-establish the Episcopal Church HQ in Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast. More recently the SAF has recaptured most of Khartoum including the symbolically important Presidential Palace. The RSF is now concentrated in El-Fasher in the Darfur region in the north and west of Sudan. It has been responsible for the most appalling atrocities yet denies it is ethnic cleansing but “tribal conflict”. Efforts are being considered for the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate. The UK Government’s recent decision to reduce the Overseas Development Aid budget is very disappointing. 

In South Sudan, violence has returned too. Many people worry that Juba may be consumed by violence again, most recently triggered by President Salvar Kiir arresting the First Vice-President Riek Machar. The South Sudan Council of Churches  has been urging all parties to seek peace and not conflict. “Faith before tribe” should be the guiding principle but that is easily said but much harder to practice. How do we do that ourselves?

Our partnership with the Sudans is founded on prayer and fellowship so please continue to hold the people of the Sudans in your prayers.

One way in which you can offer practical help is by supporting the Sudan Medical Link Fete, held in my garden on Sunday 15th June at 2pm. All are welcome as we raise much needed funds for medical aid for families in South Sudan.

+Stephen, Bishop of Salisbury


June 2025

To St Andrew’s, Wootton Rivers, and an invitation to place the first signature in their new visitor’s book, after the sixty-year service of its predecessor.

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April 2025

‘Hope is the bird that waits for dawn and sings while it is still dark.’

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March 2025

Returning recently to my former parish in Crystal Palace, South London, I was reminded of the glorious glass edifice that once stood atop Sydenham Hill, overlooking the city.

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February 2025

At the west end of your cathedral, on the south wall nearest the main entrance, is a large slate stone which records all the names of the Bishops of Salisbury. Mine is the most recent to have been inscribed. I am number 79. Someone else will follow. It serves to make one feel small rather than important.

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January 2025

At the end of 1992 we all remember the late Queen describing the year as an Annus Horribilis.  Well, in a way 2024 has been an Annus Horribilis for the Church of England. 

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December 2024

December is not the best month for a birthday, believe me, I know. Having a birthday in December has always been a bit of an anti-climax for me, especially when one is a member of the clergy and there’s another carol service to do.

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November 2024

The Somme battlefield takes you by surprise. Visitors pull into a car park in a quiet lane and wander into what looks like a leafy National Trust property. A few yards in, though, and you see the trenches. Gently undulating now, softened by time, but unmistakably the dreadful, snaking pits of our imagination. The Somme, of course, is a river: but, for the last century, a name inseparable from the battle that claimed 60,000 young British lives on its first day.

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October 2024

We have just under four hundred active retired clergy in the Salisbury diocese.

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September 2024

Welcome to this most wistful month of the year, when we sense the shift of summer into autumn, notice the mellowing light and take stock before starting again. I do hope there has been plenty of sunshine for you between the showers!

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July 2024

From my bedroom window I have a great view of both Preston Hill and Hambledon Hill. The Wessex Ridgeway Path passes across them, which spurred me, during my period of study leave earlier in the year, to walk that entire path from Marlborough to Lyme Regis. It took me across many new horizons, across the Wiltshire Downs, around Salisbury Plain and down through the Marshwood Vale to the coast. It was a great walk albeit very boggy in places given the February rain.

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