In his Christmas Day sermon, the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, said the Church of England needs to “strip off its finery and kneel in pentience and adoration. And be changed.”
He drew lessons from the nativity story of the baby Jesus born in a manger, a vulnerable child emptied of power.
His words have been interpreted as a reference to the current crisis in the Church of England, over its safeguarding processes and cases, which led to the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. He will be replaced until a successor is found, by Stephen Cottrell, who himself is facing calls to resign over his handling of a cleric jailed but then cleared on a technicality of sex abuse in the 1980s, who returned to the CofE as a vicar and found promotion while Cottrell was Bishop of Chelmsford.
Stephen Cottrell told the congregation at York Minster: “Right now, this Christmas, God’s Church itself needs to come again to the manger and strip off her finery and kneel in penitence and adoration. And be changed.
“And I believe the Church of England – the Church of England I love and serve – needs to look at this vulnerable child, at this emptying out of power to demonstrate the power of love, for it is in this tiny vulnerable child we are invited to see God.
“This is what we learn at the manger in Bethlehem, to put the needs of others first – for those who are cold and hungry and homeless this Christmas. Those who are victims of abuse and exploitation. Those who, like the little Holy family, have to flee oppression and seek refuge in a foreign land…..
Don’t just talk about justice, don’t just talk about joy, don’t just talk about service, don’t just talk about love. Show me”.
Minutes after the York Minster service ended, his sermon was criticised on Twitter / X by the Bishop of Newcastle, Helen-Ann Hartley, who has called for both Welby and Cottrell to resign. She described the sermon as “Empty words. I have no words more than that to describe their meaning”.
Christmas sermons from other bishops have been rounded up by the Church Times here.
In Rome, Pope Francis gave his usual blessing “Urbi et Orbi”, meaning to the city and the world, urging the world “to silence the sounds of arms and overcome divisions”. He called for peace in the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan, and expressed concern over the “extremely grave” humanitarian situation in Gaza.
He called for “gestures of dialogue and encounter, in order to achieve a just and lasting peace” in Ukraine and called for world leaders to “open the door” to negotiations, saying: “May the sound of arms be silenced in war-torn Ukraine”.
He too used the story of the baby Jesus to draw lessons of hope: “The infinitely great has become small; the divine light has shone through the darkness of the world; the glory of heaven has appeared on earth. And how? In the littleness of a Child. And if God comes, even when our hearts resemble a poor manger, then we can say: Hope is not dead, hope is alive, and it envelops our lives forever”.
On Christmas Eve, the Pope opened the usually bricked-up Holy Door at St Peter’s Basilica, launching jubilee year 2025, a year when pilgims come to Rome to seek forgiveness for sins. Jubilees take place only once every 25 years, and more than 30 million pilgrims are expected to head to Rome to pass through the door and seek forgiveness.
