The Church of England once again demonstrates its collapse into virtue-signaling hand-wringing irrelevance. £100m in slavery reparations, while its infrastrucrure collapses. Tom Jones at The Critic:
Southwell Cathedral has recently warned it may have to close its doors, becoming the first Cathedral to close in the history of the Church of England, while the body that manages the Church’s endowment weighs a £100 million fund for causes far from its pews.
The scale of the problem the Minster faces is as imposing as the building itself. The most pressing problem is, expectedly, the roof. To stop water pouring in when in rains and threatening the interior — including the Leaves of Southwell, the finest set of 13th century carvings in the world —there is an immediate repair bill of at least £460,000, which constitute on a repair and not a replacement, and of which £240,000 has already been funded….
The entire cost of the repair backlog is £20M, and the Minster is seeking £3.3M over the next three years to cover immediate costs and restructure the organisation.
Increased energy prices, employment costs and crippling backlogs of repairs have combined to force Southwell — along with many other cathedrals — to the brink of collapse. As Ruth Massey, Head of Fundraising, told me this has been a general trend “in most of, but not all, 42 English cathedrals. When I began here, there were at least 12 that were widely identified as having severe financial problems, and we were getting to the point where it was becoming very unclear how we were going to be able to fix it.”…
I asked Reform’s Shadow Chancellor Robert Jenrick, the local MP — who also raised the issue in Parliament — what he thought:
“Our Cathedrals are amongst the greatest achievements of our civilisation. It’s our duty to cherish and hand them to future generations intact. Sadly many are struggling financially with crippling backlogs of repairs.”
“The Church of England should scrap their reparations fund and support Southwell Minster as well as other Cathedrals (and Parish Churches). The Government could help too by reinstating the VAT relief on repairs to listed places of worship.”
The reparations fund is Project Spire, a proposal to spend £100M over four years — a figure five times the total repairs Southwell needs. The proposal has come in for heavy criticism, not least Katie Lam, MP for the Weald of Kent and Shadow Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government.
“It is extraordinary that, while historic cathedrals such as Southwell Minster face the very real prospect of having to close their doors, Church of England Commissioners are pressing ahead with their divisive and ahistorical multi-million-pound Project Spire plan.”
“The Church should be prioritising its cathedrals, parishes, and congregations, not funneling millions into an ideologically motivated political agenda, while national heritage buildings are left fighting for survival.”…
A legal challenge has been launched against Project Spire by the Rev. Dr. Jamie Franklin, who explained why last month in The Critic. His co-ligitigant in the case is Dr. Bijan Omrani, author of God is an Englishman and Critic contributor, who was outraged by the news:
“How can the Church Commissioners in good conscience spend £100m intended by law for the support of priests, parishes, cathedrals, the cure of souls, on vague NGOs, some overseas, that are nothing to do with their Christian mission, and which have no verifiable connection to whatever the historical impact of slavery might have been (with which the Church Commissioners have been unable to show that they have had any clear and direct connection). It is right that a managerial cadre of international quangocrats are offered the church’s historical endowments whilst choirs are dissolved, cathedrals crumble, and the poor and marginalised here – some of whom might actually have been descended from slaves – are sent empty away?”
Of relevance here – Why do Western leaders pay so little attention to Christian persecution? from Hardeep Singh in the Spectator. He’s talking about the violence against Christians from Islamists in Nigeria, but could have just as well been referring to the slow death of Christianity across the Middle East. Not a peep, not only from our politicians, but, notably, from the Church of England – who might be expected to care about such things. All we get from the Archbishop of Canterbury are photos of her welcoming a hard-line Islamic cleric to Lambeth Palace who brings his be-burqa’d wife along so he doesn’t have to shake hands with a woman – all while the Archbish grins inanely. Performative humiliation which effectively sums up the problem.
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