Rowan Douglas Williams, Baron Williams of Oystermouth is a Welsh Anglican bishop, theologian and poet, who served as the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury from 2002 to 2012. Previously the Bishop of Monmouth and Archbishop of Wales, Williams was the first Archbishop of Canterbury in modern times not to be appointed from within the Church of England.
Martin Henry Bashir is a British former journalist. He was a presenter on British and American television and for the BBC's Panorama programme, for which he gained an interview with Diana, Princess of Wales under false pretences in 1995. Although the interview was much heralded at the time, it was later determined that he used forgery and deception to gain it.
Nora Ephron was an American journalist, writer, and filmmaker. She is best known for writing and directing romantic comedy films and received numerous accolades including a British Academy Film Award as well as nominations for three Academy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, a Tony Award and three Writers Guild of America Awards.
Vincent Gerard Nichols is a British Catholic prelate who has served as Archbishop of Westminster since 2009. He is also president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales. He previously served as Archbishop of Birmingham from 2000 to 2009. He was created cardinal in 22 February 2014.
Michael James Nazir-Ali is a Pakistani-born British Roman Catholic priest and former Anglican bishop. He served as the 106th Bishop of Rochester from 1994 to 2009 and, before that, as Bishop of Raiwind in Pakistan. He is currently the director of the Oxford Centre for Training, Research, Advocacy and Dialogue. In 2021, he was received into the Catholic Church and was ordained as a priest for the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham on 30 October 2021, one of several Anglican bishops who converted to Catholicism that year. In 2022, he was made a monsignor. He is a dual citizen of Pakistan and Britain.
The Catholic Church in England and Wales is part of the worldwide Catholic Church in full communion with the Holy See. Its origins date from the 6th century, when Pope Gregory I through a Roman missionary and Benedictine monk, Augustine, later Augustine of Canterbury, intensified the evangelization of the Kingdom of Kent, linking it to the Holy See in 597 AD.
Monica Furlong was a British author, journalist, and activist. She was born at Kenton near Harrow, north-west of London and died at Umberleigh in Devon. An obituary called her the Church of England's "most influential and creative layperson of the post-war period."
Religion in England is characterised by a variety of beliefs and practices that has historically been dominated by Christianity. Christianity remains the largest religion, though it makes up less than half of the population. As of the 2021 census, there is an increasing variety of beliefs, with irreligious people outnumbering each of the other religions. The Church of England is the nation's established state church, whose supreme governor is the monarch. Other Christian traditions in England include Roman Catholicism, Methodism, Presbyterianism, Mormonism, and the Baptists. After Christianity, the religions with the most adherents are Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Judaism, Buddhism, modern paganism, and the Bahá'í Faith. There are also organisations promoting irreligion, including humanism and atheism. According to the 2021 census, Shamanism is the fastest growing religion in England.
The Church Times is an independent Anglican weekly newspaper based in London and published in the United Kingdom on Fridays.
Timothy David Samuels is an English documentary filmmaker, author and broadcaster. His work is characterised by approaching serious topics in provocative and entertaining ways to produce hard-hitting documentaries. Samuels formed older people's rock group The Zimmers for a BBC documentary and is a regular presenter on BBC television and radio in the UK. He has been referred to as a younger British Michael Moore, but without the political agenda. Samuels has won three Royal Television Society awards and best documentary at the World Television Festival in Banff.
Anne Atkins is an English novelist, writer and broadcaster. The author of four novels – The Lost Child, On Our Own,A Fine and Private Place, and An Elegant Solution – as well as three books of non-fiction, she is a frequent contributor to the Today programme's Thought for the Day feature.
Andrew Brown is an English journalist, writer, and editor. He was one of the founding staff members of The Independent, where he worked as a religious correspondent, parliamentary sketch writer, and a feature writer. He has written extensively on technology for Prospect and the New Statesman and been a feature writer on The Guardian. He has worked as the editor for the Belief section of The Guardian's Comment is Free, which won a Webby under his leadership, and is currently a leader writer and member of the paper's editorial board. He is also the press columnist of the Church Times. In The Beginning was the Worm (2004) was shortlisted for the Aventis Prize. Fishing in Utopia (2008) won the Orwell Prize and was nominated for the Dolman Best Travel Book Award in 2009.
Linda Jane Pauline Woodhead is a British sociologist of religion and scholar of religious studies at King's College London Faculty of Arts and Humanities. She is best known for her work on religious change since the 1980s, and for initiating public debates about faith. She has been described by Matthew Taylor, head of the Royal Society of Arts, as "one of the world's leading experts on religion".
Caroline Wyatt is an Australian-born English journalist. She presents the Saturday edition of PM on BBC Radio 4. She has worked as a BBC News journalist for over 25 years, as defence correspondent until August 2014, when she replaced Robert Pigott as religious affairs correspondent until June 2016, when she revealed that she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
Christopher Mark "Chris" Chivers is an Anglican priest, composer, and author. From 2015 until 2019, he was the Principal of Westcott House, Cambridge, an Anglican theological college in the Liberal Catholic tradition.
Lapido Media - Centre for Religious Literacy in World Affairs is a British-based ‘philanthromedia’ charity, founded by journalists to "advocate for greater awareness of the faith dimension in policy, governance, and conflict."
The Trojan Horse scandal, also known as "Operation Trojan Horse" or the Trojan Horse affair, is a conspiracy theory that posits a plot to introduce an "Islamist" or "Salafist" ethos into several schools in Birmingham, England. The name, based on the Greek legend, comes from an anonymous letter sent to Birmingham City Council in late 2013, alleged to be from Birmingham "Islamists" detailing how to wrest control of a school, and speculating about expanding the scheme to other cities. The letter was leaked to the press in March 2014. Around a month later, Birmingham City Council revealed that following the letter release it had received hundreds of allegations of plots similar to those described in the letter, some claims dating back over 20 years. The letter has been characterised as "incomplete, unsigned and unaddressed", but led to two investigations commissioned by the Department for Education and Birmingham City Council, the Clarke and Kershaw Reports, respectively. The reports did not both endorse the idea of "a plot", but point to "behaviour indicative of a concerted attempt to change schools".
Catherine Pepinster is an English editor, historian, commentator and writer with a focus on theology, Catholic and Anglican ecumenism, church history, and religion and politics. She was the first female editor of The Tablet in the newspaper's 176-year history. In 2017 she published the book The Keys and the Kingdom: The British and the Papacy from John Paul II to Francis.
Christopher Lamb is a British journalist who is the Vatican Correspondent for CNN. Previously he worked for Catholic publication The Tablet. He was also a contributor to the Vatican Insider page of La Stampa and a regular commentator for the BBC on Vatican and religious affairs.
