The phrase "a former bishop" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to refer to someone who previously held the position of bishop but no longer does.
Example: "The conference featured a talk by a former bishop who shared insights from his years of service."
Alternatives: "an ex-bishop" or "a past bishop."
Santa Claus, a former bishop from Asia Minor, thought differently.
Lewis is a former bishop and stake president.
A former bishop there was arrested almost seven years ago.
The man, John J. Geoghan, is a former priest, not a former bishop.
The ecclesiastical court, consisting of two High Court judges, two bishops and a former bishop, ruled in their favor.
In a Catholic country where a former bishop was elected as president a year ago, such unusual happenings were taken by some as a portent.
The shift follows the victory in a presidential election in April of Fernando Lugo, a leftish former bishop who ended more than half a century of rule by the Colorado Party.
The party ruled Paraguay for 61 years, 35 as a dictatorship, until losing the presidency in 2008 to Fernando Lugo, a leftist former bishop.
As governor of Massachusetts, he produced an eye-catching health-care reform that tries to use market mechanisms to solve the most pressing problem, lack of coverage for the uninsured.Yet Mr Romney is a devoted Mormon a former bishop, no less at a time when religion is playing a growing role in American politics.
LONDON — A year after his resignation plunged Belgium's Roman Catholic Church into a crisis, the former bishop of Bruges provoked almost universal condemnation on Friday, this time by admitting that he had abused a second nephew and insisting that he was not a pedophile.
However, elsewhere in the same report we see numerous mentions of cases that can be traced back to individuals, even highly-placed figures such as Cardinal Ad Simonis and the former bishop, Philippe Bär.
