George Pitcher offers insight into the inner workings at St. Paul’s Cathedral over the last few weeks, and suggests why the crisis played out as it did. He highlights a division between “the progressive-reformist” wing of the Church of England and “the dressing-up, high-church, ceremonial, and remote Church.
It was Pitcher who, a few weeks ago, offered advice to the Church on how to deal with the media.
1) Fifteen minutes before the scheduled begin of the re-opening service, the Cathedral announces it will participate in efforts to evict the protestors.
2) Former Archbishop of Canterbury sounds note of reason in op-ed (He’s actually in Wisconsin today for the installation of the new Dean and President of Nashotah House):
One moment the church was reclaiming a valuable role in hosting public protest and scrutiny, the next it was looking in turns like the temple which Jesus cleansed, or the officious risk-averse ’elf ’n safety bureaucracy of urban legend. How could the dean and chapter at St Paul’s have let themselves get into such a position?
3) A cartoon from The Guardian
A guide to the staff of a cathedral (for those non-Anglicans out there:
Dean: someone called Dean. Or failing that, Graham. Anyway, it’s a mans name, which explains why there are so few female Deans. The last known sightings were in the 1980s, (Hazell Dean, Brenda Dean)
Sub Dean: Someone else called Dean whose job it is to go out to the sandwich shop to get lunch for everyone else.
Chancellor: Runs the economy, sets the levels of taxation for visitors to the Cathedral, appears regularly on TV.
There’s more.
Giles Fraser, until yesterday, was Canon Chancellor of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London. Learned, eloquent, and occasionally a little bit shocking, he resigned when it became clear that the Occupy London protestors would be removed from Cathedral grounds.
A profile of Fraser.
Andrew Brown’s take on the story.
Another piece from The Guardian on the ham-fisted actions of Dean and Chapter.
I’ve been following the story in part because of the parallels with our own experiences at Grace over the last eight months. As I repeatedly said in the early days of the Madison protests, because of our location, anything we did or didn’t do could be construed as a political act. Keeping our doors closed during the protests on those cold winter days would have sent as a powerful a message as did our decision to open the doors and invite people in to rest their feet and warm up.
Still, I also have some sympathy with those on the Cathedral staff who would like the protestors to leave. A day or two, even three, is somewhat tolerable; but the longer the stay, the greater the toll on the life of the congregation, staff, and other ministries. Just to give one example from Grace’s experience. The number of visits to our food pantry decreased by about fifty percent last February.
The question becomes, how do you make the best of such a situation? How does it become an opportunity for ministry and mission, for reaching out to people. One entrepreneurial cleric got the idea of having Flash Evensong at St. Paul’s. That’s marvelous!
Even more important, how can the Cathedral, the Church, voice the gospel in and through the protests? That’s where the Cathedral Chapter should be focusing its energy and attention. It should also be ensuring both that access to the cathedral is kept open, to visitors and to protestors alike.
Last week there was a piece going around the web from George Pitcher on how the church should approach the media. It boggles the mind to contemplate how badly St. Paul’s has handled this situation.
Preaching Grace on the Square 