I suspect the Church of England views parish churches as a burden and a nuisance

Sep 2, 2020 by Jill

by Jason Goodwin, Country Life:

St Carantoc built one as instructed by a dove. Another was raised at the spot where St Walstan’s faithful oxen drawing his funeral bier stopped. They were built in places where people thought miracles had happened, or were blessed by spirits, or where holy water bubbled out of the earth, in wastes and on pagan shrines, by the sea and by rivers, in the hills and on the plain. They were constructed where people congregated, in villages and towns and, eventually, in the heart of industrial cities.

Saints built them, sinners built them; improvers and committees; barons and crusaders; wool merchants and kings. In Christchurch, Dorset, the final timber was dropped into place by a stranger supposed to be the Lord himself. They were built for the people of Britain. They are the glory of our island: our parish churches.

In consequence, a lot of us took their closure in the spring as an affront. For the first time since the general papal interdict placed on King John in 1208, our parish churches were shut at Easter. We have had plagues, invasion scares, civil war: but at Whitsun, the churches were all closed, too. Time was when the priest stayed with his flock and the church was a place of refuge and support. Instead, we were enjoined to phone in or watch on Zoom.

I duly watched the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Easter address. My attention slipped as he went on, but my wandering eye fell on no memorials to the dead, nor watched the play of coloured light on stone. The Archbishop was in his kitchen and I was at home. Every now and then, his sermon was interrupted by a video and, after a cutaway to a talking head, I noticed that someone appeared to have sneaked in to take a Magimix from the kitchen counter.

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