"Jim. In his post above Howard Jones suggests that the House of Lords (which is where these bishops are) does have a purpose in the setup as it is"
The usefulness or otherwise of the House of Lords has been argued ad-nauseum without my ever being convinced that an appointed bunch of non-qualified toffs serve any purpose whatever in the grand order of things, but this is beside the point.
My argument is that something as unworldly as the Church should have no part of this and has, comparatively recently, showed quite convincingly that they most certainly should not.
You may as well appoint a group of milkmen - at least they don't come with a track record of long-term persecution, a claim of divine right and a belief in the unseeable and unprovable.
I can see the logic of appointing representatives of industry (which should include both workers and management), but for the life of me, I can't see why priests should play any part in our lives without our having voluntarily requested them to do so.
Jim Carroll