Church should be more political – Cottrell

THE Church should have a louder political voice in calling out change over what society knows to be wrong, the Archbishop of York has said, with clergy moving to make it right.

Stephen Cottrell, who became the Church of England’s second most senior clergyman when he was enthroned in October, said he wants the Church to take a bigger lead.

“I simply don’t accept a separation between the church and politics, faith and politics or, for that matter, anything and politics,” he said, in an interview with The Observer.

“It’s about how we inhabit the world – and everybody and every organisation and every community has a voice and a stake.”

Mr Cottrell, a father-of-three, was enthroned as the 98th Archbishop of York in October in a smaller ceremony because of Covid-19 restrictions.

His job is to serve and to lead, he said in his first sermon, in a society that “cries out” to inhabit the world “in ways which draw us together rather than tear us apart”.

A longtime advocate for the Church’s participation in social causes, he has served as chair of the Board of Church Army in Sheffield since 2011, an organisation committed to evangelism and social justice.

Speaking ahead of the publication this week of his book, Dear England: Finding Hope, Taking Heart and Changing the World, Mr Cottrell said he could not be part of a church which did not have a political voice.

“It’s so much at the heart of what I believe to be the calling of the Church,” he said. “Loving your neighbour is a profoundly political statement.

“We’ve learned to accommodate things that we know are wrong, which it would be possible to do something about.”