Next Bishop of Rochester revealed

A new Bishop of Rochester has been named following the retirement of Dr Michael Nazir-Ali.

The Right Reverend James Langstaff has been named as the Bishop designate of Rochester and will be officially installed in a service later this year.

The 53-year-old said he had spent most of his ministry in sometimes quite tough communities.

He said he wanted to support parish clergy, tackle social issues and help the vulnerable.

He is currently the Suffragan Bishop of Norfolk.

Bishop Langstaff said he had spent much of his life as a parish priest in Birmingham and had experience and understanding of what pressures people and priests faced.

He said: "I've spent most of my ministry in sometimes quite tough community. I was in one of the toughest areas of Birmingham for about 11 years.

"I hope I know what it is like for the parish clergy who I will have a care for when I move here."

He has also said the church could be given a greater role in protecting the most vulnerable.

The father-of-two talked about the "hard work" that would be needed to form new partnerships with the government to help deliver social care in the future.

In an interview with BBC Radio Kent, Bishop Langstaff was asked if he thought the war in Afghanistan was a just war.

He said: "We know there were lots of concerns about the Iraq war and its validity.

"I think there are far fewer concerns about the Afghanistan war because we are all worried about terrorism, we've seen it on our own streets.

"And as an international community we need to tackle that."

The former Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, the Church's first non-white diocesan bishop, retired last year.