Reversing the merry-go-round

Are dioceses getting ripped off by the fat cats running the C of E's investments, and a leading contender for Canterbury rules himself out the running

Hello! We start this week with a fascinating (if a little nerdy) debate breaking out in the Church of England: has a deal cooked up in the 1990s to save the church’s pension fund from oblivion accidentally pushed dioceses into penury? And why is a bishop who’s scored a tasty £11m grant from the national church attacking the same body which just wrote him that chunky cheque?

Then we find out which bishop - tipped by many observers to be a leading contender to replace Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury - has just unexpectedly declared that they will not be a contender.

And lastly, if you didn’t know what the word ‘chrism’ meant before this week, you do now.

There’s also my latest podcast (can you really be arrested for praying the wrong thing in your head?) and a list of interesting church news stories which have caught my eye this week (including a grifting MAGA Bible seller, St Albans emerges as a no-go zone for religion, and how to save rural parishes one sausage roll at a time…