As I was walking by St Paul’s
The vicar grabbed me by the balls
THE traditional children’s nursery rhyme not only celebrates the Anglican Church’s legacy of clerical pederasty, it also evokes the more innocent pleasure of a stroll past Christopher Wren’s English Baroque masterpiece.
The Diocese of London’s “mother church” sits atop Ludgate Hill on which the Romans earlier erected a temple to Diana, goddess of chastity (ball-grabbing vicars, please note).
Wren took a lot of flak for his plan to replace the cathedral tower destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666 with a foreign-looking dome. Some protestant worthies claimed it smacked of Papist devilry.
This year, the poor old C of E has been having a bit of a rough ride.
The ruling Synod finally decided in February that it should pay compensation to children and vulnerable adults who had suffered sexual abuse at the hands of the clergy and its associated God-botherers. There were 3,287 cases in 2017 alone.
The Synod’s Bishop Jonathan Gibbs told his fellow divines: “It will mean money, serious money, and we will need to work out how we’re going to fund that.”
Then, along came Covid-19 and trashed Easter, a time when the Church can usually count on raising an extra bob or two via the collection plate.
Perhaps the C of E could top up the kitty by emulating the enterprising revivalist “bishop” who is selling bottles of oil and red yam to his South London parishioners at £91 a shot, with the assurance it will protect them from coronavirus.
You would think that Armageddon would be a busy time for organised religion. But with churches, mosques and synagogues shuttered, you could be forgiven for thinking religion has been marginalised in the present crisis.
It turns out, however, that a growing number of people are turning to it in lockdown. Downloads of Bible apps shot up by two million in March, the same month that Koran downloads hit a record high. Britain’s top online Christian bookstore reported a 55 percent rise in Bible sales in April.
Will this apparent revival outlast the crisis or will these foul-weather converts return to their godless ways once it’s all over?
“What if, after the lockdown is lifted, the pews remain empty?” the Catholic News Agency’s Luke Coppen asked in The Spectator. “Some sociologists believe that coronavirus is a dire threat to western Christianity. They predict that the disease will speed up the already fast drop in churchgoing.”
The canny C of E has long made up for declining numbers of churchgoers by charging tourists to visit its more notable sights. Salvation doesn’t come cheap at St Paul’s, for example, where visitors pay a whopping 20 quid entrance fee.
Business is nevertheless so brisk that the cathedral is planning to open a swish new visitors’ entrance in August, virus permitting.
I thought I’d find the area deserted when I strolled up there this week. Not a bit of it. There were two fire engines, a serried rank of firefighters, several men in suits, a gaggle of photographers and a lady vicar (see today’s pic).
They’d turned out to lay a wreath at the monument to London’s wartime firefighters.
Not even social-distancing advice can prevent us Brits from glorifying World War II, particularly with VE Day approaching. Maybe that’s our true religion, right behind the National Health.
Idle Thoughts on London Walks 