wfn.org | ACNS: Church of England appoints first senior black bishop

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

ACNS 3033 - ENGLAND - 18 June 2002

Church of England appoints first senior black bishop

[AP] The Church of England has appointed a Ugandan-born anti-racism
campaigner as its first senior black bishop. The Rt Revd John Sentamu was
appointed as the Bishop of Birmingham in central England, succeeding the Rt
Revd Mark Santer, who retired in May after 15 years in the post. A former
assistant Bishop of Stepney in East London, he becomes the first black
person to head an Anglican diocese in the United Kingdom.

"I am both delighted and overwhelmed to have been chosen as the eighth
bishop of Birmingham," he said at a news conference in Birmingham.

Bishop Sentamu is a high-profile figure who has often accused the Church of
England of being institutionally racist. In 1997 he became an adviser to an
inquiry into the bungled police investigation of the 1993 killing of black
teenager Stephen Lawrence. The inquiry concluded that London police were
institutionally racist. In January 2000, the bishop criticised the force
after he was stopped and searched by police officers while driving near St
Paul's Cathedral in London.

Bishop Sentamu, who left Uganda during dictator Idi Amin's regime in the
1970s, was ordained in 1979 after studying at Cambridge University.

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