Texting the Archbishop of Canterbury. By Felix Haynes, Year Eleven

Bombing, hurricanes, racism and terror. Four methods by which large numbers of people are made to suffer. In the world we live in today, even those with the strongest faith have to ask one question: where is God?

This was the first of many questions posed to the The Most Reverend Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, on his first visit to Worcester since he became Archbishop in 2013. Fifteen RS students in Year Eleven were lucky enough to be invited to attend the intimate Q&A session, which took place in the cloisters of Worcester Cathedral last Friday.

We had each submitted questions before the event and, showing that the Church is truly moving with the times, were also able to text in questions during the session. Only a handful of questions were chosen to be put to the Archbishop, and we were lucky enough to have three of ours selected, ranging from ‘Do you support refugees coming to Britain?’ to ‘Who would you vote for in the US Presidential election?’, although to the last one we were left without a clear answer!

After thoroughly grilling the Archbishop, we were invited to take part in a series of activities known as ‘Breathe’. This involved listening to a soundtrack of voices and sounds whilst moving through various ‘meditations’, including modelling creatures using play-doh and using scales to find out how to reduce our carbon footprint.

Overall, our visit to the Cathedral was rewarded with eye-opening answers that will undoubtedly help us in persuasive arguments on the issues we discuss in RS. Everyone was struck by how down-to-earth and liberal Archbishop Justin was.

In answer to the first question asked, the Archbishop remarked that, after several visits to areas of the world devastated by war or disaster, the resilience of people whose faith is tested to the limit tells us one thing – God is with all of us.

By Felix Haynes, Year Eleven