Bishop Goes to Prison - after visiting a Church, a Mosque and a Gurdwara

Bishop Alan is certain to meet many thousands of people as Bishop of St Albans, but he is seeking out people on the fringes who he wants to put centre stage as he takes up office. In the next ten days he will visit schools, hospitals a farm and a large business.

The care of a bishop is for all the people in the community, but especially for weak, suffering, young, sick or imprisoned people. He began the series of visits with All Saints Church Bedford where he met members of the community from Christian, Muslim, Hindu and Sikh backgrounds and visited a Mosque and Gurdwara within All Saints parish. Leaders of the innovative inter faith cricket and basketball teams were also present.

Speaking about his visit Bishop Alan said: “There is tremendous friendship between people of different faiths and beliefs in this community. If people think that people of different faiths are going inevitably divided, Queens Park will make them think again. The most serious division I’ve seen here is between the batting and fielding sides in the inter faith cricket team! Christian, Muslim, Hindu and Sikh leaders have all joined together not to hide their differences, or merely to tolerate each other, but to make friends.”

Bishop Alan also visited Bedford Prison where he was shown round the prison. The Revd Sally White, Chaplain to the Prison was also present. Bishop Alan joked on leaving the prison that he was glad they had let him out. He went on to make a more serious point. He said: “Prison is rightly about paying a debt back to society. Once that is done, we owe it to offenders, their victims and our communities to help them not to land themselves back in prison. “Community chaplaincy schemes have had real success with this and I want to encourage people to support theses initiatives, especially in the churches where befriending offenders on their release can make such a difference.”