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 2024

This month marks two years since my service of inauguration in the Cathedral and so its two years since I first ordained people deacon and priest – a powerful and humbling experience.

May 2024

May is exam month for my youngest daughter, who is undergoing her ‘A’ Levels this summer – the last of our three to pass through that ordeal. I still recall (as I’m sure many of you do too) the sense of elation – almost disbelief – when these were over and a new chapter of life could begin. Somewhere in my loft, I still have the ring file I flung into the air when it was all over!

April 2024

At this time of year, we are beckoned outside after a long, cold and often wet winter. Spring has sprung and all creation calls us to go outside, to tend to our gardens and to admire the new life around us.

March 2024

A century ago, the great journalist and Catholic provocateur G.K.Chesterton wrote a wonderful essay entitled ‘The Priest of Spring’ in which he considered the integration of the Christian seasons with the natural year – and referred to the “armies of the intellect who will fight to the end on whether Easter is to be congratulated on fitting in with the spring or the spring on fitting in with Easter”.

February 2024

It won’t have escaped many of us that this year, Ash Wednesday falls on Valentine’s Day. This may feel like an uncomfortable union.

November 2023

Praying for the People God Knows We Need. This autumn it has been a joy to institute and licence a record number of clergy to new posts and as well as being the beginning of new ministry for individuals, communities and parishes, these services represent the culmination of months of careful work.

December 2023

In my former parish, there were various experiments we made to make the most of the unique atmosphere of preparation and excitement accompanying Advent.

October 2023

October is one of those months when the leaves begin to change and fall, and somewhat comical excuses come into conversations about why things don’t work. Leaves on the line may well be a technical problem for the railways, but we all know it also means, somewhat ironically, why is it somethings just don’t work as they should.

September 2023

Harvest, in the agricultural sense, is well past. All is safely (or soggily) gathered in and the appealing blocks of barley and hay baling our landscape into a pop-up sculpture park have all but disappeared. The Church’s Harvest celebrations

July 2023

I write this at the end of no mow May, and during a week when we are remembering to care for God’s acre, so I am thinking about all those who serve in many ways tending our churchyards and enabling them to be places where God’s creation and God’s presence can be experienced. Thank you.