St Paul’s Cathedral: a statement from the Bishop of London
25/10/11
A statement by the Bishop of London on the protest outside St Paul’s Cathedral.
“This demonstration has undoubtedly raised a number of very important questions. The St Paul’s Institute has itself focused on the issue of executive pay and I am involved in ongoing discussions with City leaders about improving shareholder influence on excessive remuneration.
“Nevertheless, the time has come for the protestors to leave, before the camp’s presence threatens to eclipse entirely the issues that it was set up to address. The Dean and the Chapter, who are responsible for St Paul’s, have already made it clear that the protest should come to an end and I fully support that view.”
Suppose the Old Deanery is a little close for comfort!
The Bishop really, really does not get it, does he?
“Nevertheless, the time has come for the protestors to leave, before the camp’s presence threatens to eclipse entirely the issues that it was set up to address….”
Bishop Chartres has only the interests of the protesters at heart, then? Please.
June Butler
I think St Paul’s would be better off letting jovial Father Giles do the talking for the press, rather than the bearded right-wing Father Christmas substitute who, when he occupies the spatio-temporal dimension, goes by the name of the Bishop of London.
“The St Paul’s Institute has itself focused on the issue of executive pay and I am involved in ongoing discussions with City leaders about improving shareholder influence on excessive remuneration.”
For how long and to what effect? We k
new the Occupy group was there within hours, but Chartres has to tell us about the church’s efforts? Pathetic.
Maybe the objection to the occupation is about how much more effective it is than the church has been. How can they effect change if they’re part of the system thriving on the status quo?
Come, come, + Richard instead of offering your full support to the Dean and Chapter in their ridiculous and petulant stance in closing St. Paul’s cathedral you must surely begin to start thinking about moving your cathedra in protest at the closure to another church or, better still, moving your throne to the steps outside St. Paul’s alongside the protesters where Christ would surely be.
“alongside the protesters where Christ would surely be.”…?
Another lefty liberal nonsense about Our Lord, who when he walked the earth had many opportunities to join the “radical political movements” of his time, but stayed way out of them!
Perhaps Antony and Bishop Chartres should host a “We Just Don’t Get It” party on the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral.
(Actually, Antony, Jesus’ problem with the “radical political movements” of his time was that they weren’t radical enough. The Kingdom of God — now that’s radical.)
Au contraire, Antony @ 8:13 am, I believe long-standing orthodox Christian doctrine was that Jesus was fully human as well as fully divine. As the fully human Jesus of Nazareth, the way I read the Gospels, he wasn’t some light and airy theological subject floating through life, just simply accepting everyone’s adoration and praise until it was time for him to evanesce back into heaven. He didn’t just coast along. He got himself involved. He lived. He challenged leaders, he turned the tables on some of the economic oppressors, he associated with the less-well-off of Judean society and praised their… Read more »
“Another lefty liberal nonsense about Our Lord, who when he walked the earth had many opportunities to join the “radical political movements” of his time, but stayed way out of them!” It seems to me that Our Lord did take sides, for example he took the side of Lazarus over that of Dives, and endorsed the very radical lefty liberal notion that we are indeed our brother’s keeper, that the fortunate and the great are just as accountable as all the rest of us. Ours is a world of banks too big to fail run by people too important to… Read more »
None of the ones on offer to Christ were peaceful, were they? I do not for one moment think the church should stop doing what it does – worshipping God and transforming lives. I fail to see how it can do that without engaging with people. Moreover, since SOME of what the protesters want is the work of God as defined by His mother (putting down the might from their seats, sending the rich empty away) it seems sensible to be ministering to them – WITHOUT losing sight of the other aspects of the Gospel. Shutting up shop cannot be… Read more »
So the ‘Health and Safety’ issues (that the Chapter wouldn’t delineate to the protestors) wasn’t the real reason they wanted to move them on? The protestors have co-operated, and so the Cathedral is re-opening, but if the Chapter had wanted to they could have achieved this outcome at the outcome (and the Cathedral need never have been closed) because the protestors were genuinely mystified and perplexed that their requests for clarification were ignored. So the protestors co-operate, and the cathedral backs down on the health and safety argument which its losing, and instead we learn from the Bishop of London… Read more »