[4][5] That year, he entered St Stephen's House, Oxford, an Anglo-Catholic theological college, to train for the priesthood.

On 21 October 2001, Thornton was consecrated a bishop by George Carey, the then Archbishop of Canterbury, at Southwark Cathedral.

[19] In 2015, Thornton was the Anglican delegate to the XIV Ordinary General Assembly of the (Roman Catholic) Synod of Bishops.

In March 2016, Thornton was cited in a Guardian report[20] on the Elliott Review as one of several senior figures who had received a disclosure of child sex abuse but had "no recollection".

"What is surprising about this is that he (the survivor) would be speaking about a serious and sadistic sexual assault allegedly perpetrated by a senior member of the hierarchy.

The survivor had tried repeatedly to alert the archbishop's office to critical concerns arising from these denials, but was ignored on the instruction of the church's insurers.

[21] The resulting Elliott Review led to damning headlines across the UK and world media[22][23][24][25][26][27] and kickstarted significant cultural and structural change in the Church of England's response to sex abuse cases.