A spokesman for the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales has expressed “profound” sadness at the death of MP Jo Cox. The 41-year-old Labour MP was stabbed and shot after holding a constituency surgery in Birstall, West Yorkshire. The bishops’s spokesman said: “We are profoundly saddened and shocked at the death of Jo Cox. Our society has lost a dedicated public servant. “Her life touched the lives of so many others and we share the deep sense of loss at her passing ... The Catholic community throughout England and Wales will be praying for Jo, her husband Brendan and their family.” Catholic peer Lord Alton hailed Mrs Cox’s “remarkable dedication to humanitarian causes”. Speaking to an audience in Liverpool, he quoted her husband, Brendan, who said: “Jo believed in a better world and she fought for it every day of her life with energy and a zest for life that would exhaust most people.” Fr Eamon Hegarty, of the Church of St Mary of the Angels in Batley, in Mrs Cox’s constituency. said she was a “really lovely lady” who was “generous with her time and willing to help in any way she could”. A GoFundMe page set up in tribute to Mrs Cox raised half a million pounds in a day. At her family’s request, the money raised will be shared between the Royal Voluntary Service, which helps to combat loneliness in her constituency; the White Helmets, volunteer search and rescue workers in Syria; and Hope Not Hate, which seeks to challenge extremism across Britain.