Bishop of Guildford may have only a month to live

The Bishop of Guildford, the Right Reverend Andrew Watson, has revealed he may have only a month to live.

In a letter dated 10 February the 64-year-old said he had been diagnosed with inoperable cancer after suffering "a persistent band of pain" in his stomach.

In a further missive to the diocese he said he had been told by an oncologist a tumour on his pancreas was an adenosquamous carcinoma, which the consultant told him was aggressive and difficult to manage.

Chemotherapy, Bishop Andrew said he was told, could do more harm than good.

The father-of-four added that he had been passed into the care of a hospice.

He wrote: "'So how long might I have to live?' I plucked up the courage to ask.

"'You'd be doing well if you were still alive in a month's time', was the sobering answer."

The bishop said he was feeling weaker every day.

His main focus was on "cheerfully persisting towards a good death".

Interim leadership of the diocese has been handed to Bishop of Dorking, the Right Reverend Paul Davies.

Watson said: "I don't fear the prospect of dying and find to my relief that my faith in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting has only grown stronger over the past few weeks.

"I've sometimes had private worries that, when faced with the starkness of a terminal diagnosis, my faith in the risen Christ might falter.

"Well, it hasn't. Or better still, God hasn't faltered. Quite the reverse," he said.

"Nor do I feel short-changed by what's happening. Of course, I have grumpy patches when I'm in pain or not sleeping properly."

Only in St. Paul's "most generous definition" was he a saint, he said.

Watson added that he considered himself blessed to have been born into a loving family, to have found Christ as a teenager, to have spent almost 40 years happily married, to have raised four children, and to have been charged with running ministries within the Church of England.

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