BISHOP'S WISH

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 85, 7 October 1933, Page 10

BISHOP'S WISH

OBJECTION TO TITLE

CHURCH DRAMA ADVOCATE

(From "The Post's" Representative.) , LONDON, August 24. The Bishop of Bristol (Dr. Woodward, late Canon of Westminster) does not wish to bo addressed as "My Lord." Writing in the "Bristol Diocesan Magazine" for September, ho says:— "Most of you have been very kind in falling in with my wishes about honorific titles, but some have found it difficult to do so. But this is a matter of real principle with mo and not a mere whim. "I cannot establish the relations I long for with you all if I am to be addressed as 'My Lord.'. "In-the old days, when the bishops were scholars who lived' in dignified ease apart from the clergy, and wero occasionally to be seen driving, in state through muddy roads to hold Confirmation in the larger centres of tho diocese, such titles were perhaps not inappropriate. "But, thank God, things are different now, and wo may surely greet ono another in simpler and more human ways." The Bishop, at his enthronement, appealed to the clergy not to say "My Lord," and declared he would feel his duty done when everyone called him friend. A woman director of religious drama has been appointed by the Bishop, who has also set up a diocesan religious drama committee. The function of the committee, tho Bishop states in the, '' Diocesan Gazette,'' will be to advise in the choice of" plays and help in their production. Incumbents contemplating presenting a play in church must obtain tho Bishop's approval of the play, and the Bishop advises those producing plays in church halls to apply to the newly-appointed director, Mrs. Peareth, who was responsible for recent Nativity plays given in Bristol Cathedral. Keforring to the recent revival of roligious plays in churches, tlie Bishop docs not agree that such performances must entail loss of reverence for sacred thiu2i. " __