Lord Moore of Etchingham (Non-Afl)

My Lords, I must say that I am a little distressed to hear from Conservative Benches the nature of this criticism of the Bishops. It is unfortunate. I understand, however, that people get cross with the Bishops for all sorts of reasons—I certainly frequently do in columns that I write. I also hesitate to speak on this subject because these are high and complicated matters. But I do feel that somebody has to speak for the Bishops here, because they will not speak for themselves. After all, our Lord said, “let this cup pass from me”, and that is more or less so for the Bishops. They cannot say, “No, I want to keep the cup. I want to go on and have another pint in the Bishops’ Bar”. They have to express a becoming humility, which basically means that they have to shut up on this subject—or so they will tend to feel. Of course, we feel cross about this sometimes and I believe that there is a problem with the Bishops in this period. I will illustrate it with an example. I had a very lovely, pious aunt, who, as a child, attended her parish church. Two clergy preached there: one was very good at it and one was very bad. She said to her parents, “When Mr X preaches, I listen, and when Mr Y preaches, I keep my mind on higher things”. Sometimes, with some of the episcopal utterances we hear nowadays, we need to keep our minds on higher things.