Archbishop thankful for prayers after surgery for prostate cancer

The Archbishop, 63, underwent surgery for “locally advanced” prostate cancer at St James’s Hospital in Leeds yesterday.

In a statement, he said he was grateful for the work of surgeon Bill Cross, his team and nursing staff caring for him.

“I am thankful, too, for all of you who regularly pray for me and support me, especially my staff at Bishopthorpe Palace,” he added.

“I will be out of action for some time and will continue to value your prayers. I look forward to resuming my ministry as soon as possible.

“As I have often said, during the most trying times, I have derived great comfort from the words of the Taize chant, ‘Aber du weisst den Weg fur mich’, adapted from a passage in Letters and Papers from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, (a German pastor and theologian executed by the Nazis in 1945):

“God, gather and turn my thoughts to you. With you there is light, you do not forget me. With you there is hope and patience. I don’t understand your ways, but you know the way for me.”

It was not previously known that the Archbishop had cancer. He had some ill health in 2011 when he spent nearly two weeks in St Thomas’s Hospital in London after suffering complications following an operation to remove his appendix.

The popular and outspoken cleric came to the UK in 1974 after fleeing crisis-torn Uganda.

He once pitched a tent in York Minster for a week, forgoing food, in solidarity with those suffering in the Middle East. He sky-dived to raise money for families of servicemen wounded or killed in Afghanistan – and spoke out against bankers over the financial crisis.

He has also supported the threatened children’s heart surgery unit at St James’s sister hospital, Leeds General Infirmary.

The vanishing Big Society: Page 13.