Letters | 25 July 2019

Rose is the right choice

Sir: Every Wednesday for the past nine years, it has been my privilege to attend the lunchtime Eucharist services in the Parliamentary Chapel, conducted by the Speaker’s Chaplain Rose Hudson-Wilkin. These routine acts of worship are not public, but are attended by parliamentary staff, MPs and peers. Central to them are Rose’s homilies and prayers, which are spiritual life-support to those of us who serve and navigate our increasingly fraught politics. I did not recognise the person described by Ysenda Maxtone Graham in her article (‘Kent’s new Rose’, 20 July) and noted with some concern the author’s emphasis on perceived political agendas, which we are told is ‘what worries East Kent (population 89 per cent white British)’. Those of us fortunate enough to have worked with Rose know her to be first and foremost a skilled evangelist and preacher, who has profound pastoral gifts. It is those qualities of evangelism and pastoral care that make her entirely the right person to minister to all the people of the Canterbury Diocese in her new role as Bishop of Dover.