Updated Friday 25 November
The Chapter issued this statement on Wednesday:
The Chapter of St Paul’s met today (16 November) and issued the following statement
We are committed to maintaining St Paul’s as a sacred space in the heart of London and we are enormously grateful to all Cathedral staff for meeting the challenges of recent weeks.
We recognise the local authority’s statutory right to proceed with the action it has today.
We have always desired a peaceful resolution and the Canons will continue to hold regular meetings with representative of the protesters.
We remain committed to continuing and developing the agenda on some of the important issues raised by the protest.
Ed Beavan at the Church Times reports today that St Paul’s stays cool as City turns up heat.
Peter Walker and Riazat Butt report in the Guardian that Occupy London: business as usual as eviction deadline passes.
Meanwhile, Giles Fraser also writes for the Guardian that Occupy St Paul’s: no church should insulate itself from raw human need.
And there is a helpful backgrounder on the legal issues by Giles Pinker, see Bid to evict Occupy London is just the start of legal wrangling.
Once again, here is last week’s Church Times press column by Andrew Brown on the coverage of this story, including an explanation of the term “reverse ferret”.
And Christopher Landau wrote about How to stop being a media victim. The fact that Rob Marshall has strongly attacked this article today in the letters to the editor (to which only subscribers have access until next week) should make you want to read it.
Update this letter from Rob Marshall is now available: St Paul’s Cathedral: a PR adviser’s response to criticism, and further reflections. See what you think.