Bishop John’s call for peace

Monday 5th August 2024

Bishop John has issued a call for peace as violent riots rage through communities across our diocese.

Over the past few days, towns, cities, and communities across the UK have been scenes of desolation and unrest as rioters take to the streets in protest, citing a reaction to last week’s tragic attack in Southport.

Following riots in Manchester and Bolton over the weekend, Bishop John Arnold has condemned such violence during a radio interview with BBC Radio Manchester this morning.

He said: “It has been truly alarming to see such displays of violence unfolding in our communities over the past few days. The terrible crime of last Monday must be dealt with in its own context, with due process, and it cannot be connected with opportunities to protest in different ways.

“For people to use this as an opportunity – through misinformation on social media – to promote their own anti-immigrant and anti-Islamic views is completely unacceptable in our society today. We’ve got to challenge them and when they commit crimes, they need to be held to account for that.”

During the interview, Bishop John welcomed the rich diversity of our society, praising communities that have come together in celebration of such diversity to build vibrant communities of peace and fraternity.

He said: “We’re a democratic society, we’re people of diversity and we need to work very hard on that community cohesion. In many places, we’ve succeeded really well, and communities are bound closely together in their diversity, but we’ve got to take this as a challenge for further progress, making sure everybody has their dignity, their rights to their own religious beliefs, and that we can live in peace together.”

Bishop John also expressed his gratitude to our police force and calls us all to come together in our similarities to pave the way to a sense of peace and common good.

He said: “We’ve also got to be grateful to the police, who – at considerable cost to themselves – are seeking to control and pacify the situation. Perhaps there is an opportunity in these days to address the questions of our common hopes and our aspirations for our society, and to build on those, and so isolate the extremist views of the past few days.”

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