Thoughts on the Resurrection — and humanity

Many of us think that Easter is but one day.

There we would be mistaken. Eastertide runs all the way to Pentecost Sunday, which comes 50 days later. Sunday Lectionary readings continue to point us to the holy mystery of Christ’s resurrection and the promise of eternal bodily resurrection on the Last Day.

On Easter Day, a number of articles appeared in the press discussing the most important feast in the Church calendar. If Christ had not risen from the dead, then our hope as Christians is in vain.

Christ’s disciples did not understand or believe that He would actually rise from the dead on the third day. It was incomprehensible to them, even though Jesus had said this would happen. Furthermore, He raised his good friend Lazarus from the dead several days beforehand. The Critic explored this in light of Mark’s Gospel, ‘This vision glorious’, concerning the women who found our Lord’s tomb empty (emphases mine):

And they went out quickly, and fled from the sepulchre; for they trembled and were amazed: neither said they any thing to any man; for they were afraid (Mark 16:8)

This is the description in Saint Mark’s Gospel of the response of the women at the empty Tomb on the first Easter Day. It is, scholars think, the earliest of the four Gospel accounts of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. We might think that it lacks Easter joy. “Fled … trembled … amazed … afraid”: these are not words that immediately come to mind when wishing someone a “Happy Easter”. Indeed, the fact that these women were initially silent in the face of the empty Tomb — and, for good measure, an angelic vision declaring “he is risen; he is not here” — overturns any assumption that the Resurrection of Jesus was received as a straightforward “all is good, no need to worry” affirmation.

As we realise when reading Saint Mark’s account of the Resurrection of Jesus alongside those in the other gospels, there is nothing straightforward, easily comprehended about the Resurrection. The accounts by the four Evangelists do not at all neatly, comfortably sit beside each other. The timelines, the characters, the events cannot be straightforwardly pieced together, as if we were watching the concluding episode of a television series, or reading the final chapter of an airport novel. 

The various timelines, characters, and events in the accounts given of the Resurrection in the four Gospels are infinitely richer and more demanding. They are witnessing to and seeking to convey to us something of the explosion of divine presence, light, and life that occurred at that Tomb on the first Easter Day. Little wonder that the four Gospel accounts are anything but straightforward; little wonder that they can appear confused, even contradictory. Language, experience, recollection — all these are stretched far beyond what they can possibly contain on the first Easter Day. The One who is eternal Light and Life, the mighty Creator of all that is, touches and fills the Tomb with creative, life-giving power. 

Neat, comfortable, easily comprehended accounts of the empty Tomb would utterly fail to convey the explosive outpouring of this creative, life-giving power. No straightforward affirmation, the Resurrection of Jesus brings us, with those women at the Tomb, to be silenced in awe and reverence before the revelation of God’s life-giving presence and saving purposes …

The current — and long-running — trend to see Christianity as a social justice project undermines the Resurrection:

There is little that quite so undermines the proclamation of the Resurrection of Jesus, the Easter faith, than regarding it as an affirmation of a political or cultural project. Neatly fitting the Resurrection into political or cultural visions, as a convenient, helpful prop, is to profoundly misunderstand (if not deny) the faith of Easter. It is to entirely set aside Saint Mark’s account of the reaction of the women at the empty Tomb, rendering their reaction unnecessary and inappropriate rather than the authentic witness to God’s presence and act in the Resurrection. 

Let us reflect on this, not just on Easter, which seems an eternity ago for some, but during the rest of Eastertide:

… let us heed the response of the women at the empty Tomb, recognising in that response the witness to the out-pouring of Eternal Light and Life, bringing to humanity — broken, confused, and foolish as we are — participation in the Resurrection life, anticipated now and having its fullness in the life of the world to come …

May Easter Day renew us — amidst whatever tombs, whatever defeats and failures and fears we know — in this enduring hope, this vision glorious.

Another theme which runs from the Crucifixion through to the Resurrection is that of forgiveness, which is so difficult. It can be for me, anyway, particularly in serious situations when people who know how to help have been unhelpful.

It is easier to hold on to grudges against such people than it is to forgive them.

Another article in The Critic, ‘Try Christianity’, explores our difficulty in forgiving others, something that Jesus did so readily, yet He suffered much more hurt than we do.

Let’s start with apologies, something else few of us do:

… the pen of P. G. Wodehouse still manages to express a multitude of sentiments from the pews. On this occasion I’m thinking specifically of a line from The Man Upstairs: “It is a good rule of life never to apologise. The right sort of people don’t want apologies, and the wrong sort of people want to take a mean advantage of them.” In his narration, Wodehouse has summed up how many Anglicans, perhaps even many English Christians, think about God, sin, confession and forgiveness.

While Wodehouse has a point, I would venture that his view on apologies pertains to most people, not just English Christians.

Furthermore, our reluctance to forgive varies among cultures. For some, the mantra is, ‘Don’t get mad, get even’.

The article points us, using the words of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer in the first paragraph below, to our Lord’s example that we remember on Good Friday:

… we are confronted by this God-Man who allows himself to be vulnerable, who confidently demands contrition, and whose property is always to have mercy …

Many of us still believe and act on the conviction that contrition and forgiveness is really rather complicated and perhaps should be avoided. Or that it can only be extended when the one wronged has returned to a position of power and the enfeebled supplicant comes begging. Examples are superfluous here — you will know when your hackles are raised by injustice or snobbery or idiocy. 

The quality of mercy is so alien to the wounded creature that it simply must be a miracle. Today that quality is one which we see in the most maligned of persons, the Man of Nazareth, hanging on the cross. “A man of sorrows”, Isaiah called him, “acquainted with grief — despised and rejected.” When soldiers struck and mocked him he returned “Father, forgive them.” When the thief next to him asked for clemency, he granted it.

Even when we assent to a conceptual understanding of Christian forgiveness we qualify it. As Cosimo de Medici wryly put it, “We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends.” However, Jesus’ business on earth was not finished until he had assured his friend Peter, the one who denied him, of his consistency.  

Today we remember that Jesus of Nazareth decided that forgiveness was worth dying for. And his life and death stand as an example and challenge to us still.

Well, one would not have seen either of these two themes in the media between Good Friday and Easter, March 29 and March 31, 2024.

A third article in The Critic examined the BBC’s online headlines on March 29:

… it is Good Friday, and the front page of the BBC website appears to have precisely no references to the occasion. The “culture” section contains articles about Beyoncé, the Oscars (that holy ceremony!), Godzilla x Kong and “What we know about the accusations against Diddy”. Stirring stuff. 

Buried deep on the site’s “Topics” section is a “Religion” page. Recent articles include “Rastafarian faith mentor dies, aged 73” (RIP to him) and “UK’s first Turkish mosque faces threat to its future”. Nothing about Easter — though there is a guide to celebrating Holi, which is nice.

A fourth article in The Critic points the finger of blame at the established Church for promoting social justice ideology, ‘The Church of England is practising a secular religion’:

Church attendance is of course declining. One in five worshippers has disappeared since 2019 alone. Is the Church of England spending more and more money on dubious forms of “anti-racism” under the delusion that it will attract young leftists to its services on Sundays? Or perhaps this quasi-theological endeavour is just a more winnable cause than encouraging religious belief and practice. Justin Welby cannot fill his churches but he can fill his heart with a sense of righteousness. 

This isn’t good enough — not for anyone. An obsessive interest in the sacred values of equality diversity and inclusion can distract believers from the divine, but it also threatens the social functions of the Church of England. The Church is one of the last major foundations of tradition left in the United Kingdom, along with the monarchy. The identitarian left has been tearing at the stitches holding us together for a number of years. To imitate its most fanatical tendencies is to encourage divisiveness rather than inclusion.

The Church of England should stop enabling these phenomena. Granted, to place the blame for its diminished status entirely on “woke Welby” would be naive. The problem predates the current Archbishop of Canterbury. A Telegraph analysis shows that church attendance has more than halved since 1987. However, the embrace of secular religion is exacerbating rather than ameliorating its decline.

This year, the Easter services at Canterbury Cathedral featured the Lord’s Prayer recited in Urdu or Swahili, led by native speakers of those languages. On the face of it, it’s something inclusive. Yet, people in every non-English speaking country recite the Lord’s Prayer in their own tongues. When, on holiday, I used to attend services at the Reformed Church of France, I joined everyone in reciting it in French. Therefore, what’s the big deal?

The Telegraph covered the story (as did GB News) in ‘Canterbury Cathedral reads Lord’s Prayer in Urdu and Swahili during Easter service’:

At the 10am service shown on the BBC, The Very Rev Dr David Monteith, Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, invited each member of the congregation to say the Lord’s Prayer in their own language, while it was led in Urdu on the microphone by a member from Pakistan. The subtitles on the screen were in English.

At an earlier service, aired on Radio 4, the prayer was led in Swahili.

The Dean said: “We invite congregations to say the Lord’s Prayer in their own first language at most of our communion services …

“From time to time, we invite someone to lead in their preferred language of prayer – today it’s in Congo Swahili as he was ordained in Zaire, and by a member of the Community of St Anselm from Pakistan …”

Then came Justin Welby’s sermon, which had nothing to do with the Resurrection, the core tenet of the Christian faith:

Shortly after the Lord’s Prayer was said, the Most Rev Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, used his Easter sermon at the cathedral to condemn “the evil of people smugglers” in the wake of a row over the Clapham chemical attacker being granted asylum.

The article also points out:

Several Church of England dioceses faced backlash after appointing individuals or teams to address racial inequality in their regions amid concerns they would alienate ordinary worshippers.

However, dissent is also present elsewhere in the world. Anglican church groupings outside the UK are at odds with Welby:

The Archbishop has been struggling to unite the Anglican Communion because of the row on same-sex blessings.

The conservative Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GSFA), which represents churches on every continent and the majority of Anglicans worldwide, has previously said that it expects the organisation to “formally disassociate” from both the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Church of England.

However, it was not only Justin Welby pulling the identity politics strings. In the United States, Joe Biden’s administration declared Easter Sunday, of all days, Trans Visibility Day.

And here I thought that Joe Biden was a Catholic.

The Telegraph had an article on the story, ‘Joe Biden has betrayed Christian America’. The most telling sentence was this one:

And certainly he had dozens of other dates on the transgender awareness calendar, including a whole week in November, he could have chosen instead.

Returning to the UK, on April 3, The Telegraph‘s Madeline Grant wrote about Richard Dawkins having his cake and eating it in ‘Christianity’s decline has unleashed terrible new gods’:

… Professor Dawkins’ admission that he considers himself a “cultural Christian”, who is, at the very least, ambivalent about Anglicanism’s decline is an undeniably contradictory position for a man who in the past campaigned relentlessly against any role for Christianity in public life, railing against faith schools and charitable status for churches.

Before we start preparing the baptismal font, it’s worth noting that Dawkins says he remains “happy” with the UK’s declining Christian faith, and that those beliefs are “nonsense”. But he also says that he enjoys living in a Christian society. This betrays a certain level of cultural free-riding. The survival of society’s Christian undercurrent depends on others buying into the “nonsense” even if he doesn’t.

Grant gives us an example of the ‘terrible new gods’ — Scotland’s new Hate Crime Act which came into force on April 1:

By the New Atheist logic, it ought to be the most rational place in the UK since de-Christianisation has occurred there at a faster rate. Membership of the national Church of Scotland has fallen by 35 per cent in 10 years and the Scottish Churches Trust warns that 700 Christian places of worship will probably close in the next few years. A Scottish friend recently explained that every place where he’d come to faith – where he was christened, where his father was buried – had been shut or sold. This is not only a national tragedy, but a personal one.

New Atheism assumed that, as people abandoned Christianity they would embrace a sort of enlightened, secular position. The death of Christian Scotland shows this was wrong. Faith there has been replaced by derangement and the birthplace of the Scottish enlightenment – which rose out of Christian principles – now worships intolerant new gods.

The SNP’s draconian hate crime legislation is a totemic example. Merely stating facts of biology might earn you a visit from the Scottish police. But perhaps Christianity has shaped even this. It cannot be a coincidence that Scotland, home of John Knox, is now at the forefront of the denigration of women. The SNP’s new blasphemy laws are just the latest blast of that trumpet … 

… Much of what atheists ascribed to vague concepts of “reason” emerged out of the faith which informed the West’s intellectual, moral, and, yes, scientific life – a cultural oxygen we breathe but never see …

… The world isn’t morally neutral, and never has been.

Recognising Christianity’s cultural impact is the first step. The bigger task facing the West is living out these values in an age when they are increasingly under threat.

On Easter Day, The Telegraph‘s Tim Stanley, an agnostic turned Roman Catholic, wrote about the horror of what assisted dying — euthanasia — legislation could bring to the UK. At the end, he had this to say about the impact that widespread unbelief has had on Holy Week and Easter:

Christ died on Good Friday, but for much of the zeitgeist he has never risen again, setting the context for this debate that is minus the hope that once brightened the lives of Westerners even in war or plague.

I thank God I am a Christian. I would have to fake it if I weren’t. In an atheistic culture, beyond the here and now, there is little to live for – and when the here and now become unbearable, nowhere to turn but death.

It is up to us as individuals, with or without the help of the Church and the media, to keep the spirit of forgiveness and the hope of bodily resurrection alive. How do we do that? By studying the Bible, verse by verse.

How Easter 2024 unfolded in England

Privately, many Christians in England celebrated Easter with much joyful reverence.

Publicly, the media covered the greatest feast day in the Church year quite differently. It’s not the media’s fault. They covered only what they saw.

What follows are news items from the last ten days of March 2024.

Ramadan at King’s Cross railway station

On Tuesday, March 19, the display at King’s Cross showed that day’s hadith for Ramadan devotions on the railway station’s departure board:

The Telegraph reported (emphases mine):

A Network Rail spokesman said the publicly owned infrastructure company was marking the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which stretches from March 10 to April 9 in 2024.

“King’s Cross station is made up of a diverse and multicultural workforce and at times of religious significance, messages such as these are displayed to celebrate the station’s diversity and inclusivity,” they said …

“Throughout the year, messaging at the station also celebrates festivals from other religions including Easter, Christmas, Passover and Diwali to mark the beliefs of our colleagues and passengers.”

When asked by The Telegraph for examples of departure board messages displayed to mark other religious festivals, the spokesman suggested none were available because staff had taken no pictures of them.

Incredible.

Pakistani flag flies over Westminster Abbey

Did we know that the Pakistani flag flies over Westminster Abbey once a year?

It seemed to be the first time the British public had seen a photo of it, which circulated online on March 22. I believed it only when I saw it on GB News.

Pakistan’s The News reported that this takes place annually as the nation is part of the Commonwealth (bold in the original):

LONDON: Pakistan Day Special Memorial Service was held at the Westminster Abbey. In keeping with the past practice, Pakistani flag was also flown on top of the north tower of the Abbey.

As per details, [the] Abbey organized a special Evensong in connection with the National Day of Pakistan. Special prayers were offered for the strengthening of Pakistan-UK friendship and the well-being of the people of the two countries. While the national flag kept flying on top of the north tower of Westminster Abbey the entire day …

Pakistan Day commemorates the passing of Lahore Resolution, under which a separate nation for the Muslims of the British Indian empire demanded by Muslim League was passed on March 23, 1940.

Westminster Abbey has strong links to the Commonwealth and prays for the countries of the Commonwealth throughout its regular pattern of daily services.

Each year, the high commissioners of the Commonwealth countries are invited by the Dean to evensong on or close to their national day. The National Flag is flown on the day when the High Commission is represented at Evensong.

The Cross offends

It has become clear that the Cross offends our betters in Britain.

Radio Times

When I first moved here decades ago, I was heartened to see that the Radio Times, the original and foremost of broadcasting listing magazines, had illustrations of crosses in the margins of their pages for Good Friday and churches on Easter Day.

Unfortunately, the crosses and churches, except for tiny ones, disappeared some years ago. The veteran Christian commentator Catherine Pepinster observed in the Telegraph on Wednesday, March 20, ‘British officialdom treats Christianity with open contempt’:

Christian symbols and spaces are contested, too. Years ago, the Radio Times would have a special border on its pages with programmes for Good Friday, with a cross within the image. This year, the cross – the very thing that denotes Jesus’ crucifixion which is commemorated every Good Friday – is missing and instead there is a gambolling spring lamb and a miniscule church. Perhaps they thought it too distressing or too, well, overtly Christian.

However, that all went by the wayside long before 2024.

Pepinster notes that Good Friday is now viewed as a day of celebration rather than penitence:

… some restaurants have emailed me with an invitation to “celebrate” Good Friday with a slap-up lunch.

Hot cross buns

On March 21, GB News reported that Iceland, one of our supermarket chains, decided to replace the cross on hot cross buns with a tick (checkmark):

Iceland is running a trial where it will sell hot cross buns with a ‘tick’ instead of a ‘cross’ alongside the traditional treats that feature a cross.

However, this has caused fury among some customers and Christian groups as it removes the religious symbol, with some shoppers calling it “craziness” …

Research by Iceland suggested a fifth of customers want to ditch the cross and would prefer a ‘tick’ symbol on their sweet treats instead …

Iceland has made the change as part of a trial to find out which customers prefer and said it hopes to gauge feedback before rolling out further changes.

I can only hope that the traditional hot cross buns outsold those with the tick.

This year saw another hot cross bun change: the extravagant flavour varieties. Traditionally, the hot cross bun is a modest, lightly sweetened roll flavoured with spices to remind us of our Lord’s suffering on Good Friday. The cross on top is not sweet, either; it’s made out of edible paste. Now there are several gourmet varieties of hot cross bun: chocolate, bacon, cheese — you name it. It’s just wrong.

St George’s Cross on football shirts

On March 22, news emerged that the Football Association (soccer) modified the George Cross on the England team’s shirt collars, adding blue to the red.

This did not go down well, either.

The Guardian said:

Perhaps with a little foresight the Football Association could have avoided the unhappiness over the recoloured George Cross on its latest overpriced scratchy nylon replica shirt by suggesting this design detail was related to the fact England v Brazil takes place on the weekend of Palm Sunday, when the cross is traditionally hung with purple, thereby out-sanctifying even the most patriotic of brocade-fondlers.

Not that this would have helped anyone get any closer to the objective truth here. Which is that the flag (and this isn’t The Flag. It’s a flag) is not a protected symbol. Nike’s decision to go with a purple, blue and pink version of the beloved cross may be pointless, gimmicky, and even quite cynical – nobody here does anything without focus-grouping every last chevron and flash: if the response really was unforeseen then the FA and Nike need to sack their entire marketing teams.

I wonder how the shirts will sell.

I am amazed at how offensive decision-makers in any sector of our society find the George Cross when there are several other countries which have it as part of their national flag. Those nations never find it embarrassing or shameful. Why should the English?

Ramadan lights in London

A week after the aforementioned King’s Cross station departure board display, Ramadan lights went up once again in central London. I saw them last year.

They say ‘Happy Ramadan’, yet I thought that Ramadan was supposed to be a time of fasting, prayer and reflection before Eid.

No one says ‘Happy Lent’, do they?

On March 27, Wednesday of Holy Week, The Telegraph reported:

Ramadan lights will be on display in London’s West End over the Easter Weekend …

This year marks the second year that the Muslim celebration has been marked with illuminations in central London.

The lights are funded by the Aziz Foundation, a charity founded by Asif Aziz, a billionaire property developer whose company owns sites including the London Trocadero that occupies much of the block between Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square.

The lights – wishing a ‘‘Happy Ramadan’’ – have drawn plaudits but prompted a warning from prominent local Conservatives that the council must also support the other major faiths during important festivals.

Last week Network Rail was forced to remove an Islamic message on the departure board at London King’s Cross.

The rail operator faced criticism following its decision to display a “hadith [Islamic epithet] of the day” to celebrate Ramadan, as part of a diversity initiative.

Among the criticisms Humanists UK said it felt public train stations “should not be urging ‘sinners’ to repent”, after the phrase was used in the message.

Paul Swaddle, leader of the minority Tory group on Westminster council, offered full support to the Ramadan lights but questioned why a Ramadan display in the window of Westminster’s city hall offices had not yet been replaced by an Easter one in time for this weekend.

Mr Swaddle said: “The thing I would question is this: there has been a Ramadan celebration in the window of Westminster city hall. But I just wonder if the Easter one is going up very soon? Easter is one of the most important Christian festivals of the year but what are they [the Labour council] doing to celebrate it? I am not aware they are. I suspect the window display is not going to change.”

Not a chance.

Maundy Thursday

For whatever reason, HMP (His Majesty’s Prison) Lewes decided to serve curry to the inmates on Maundy Thursday. The curry made them ill:

Hmm.

BBC drops televised Easter Day broadcast

On Good Friday, the Telegraph informed us that there would be no televised BBC broadcast of an Easter church service this year:

The BBC has been accused of turning its back on Britain’s Christian faith after scrapping its broadcast of the traditional Easter service from King’s College, Cambridge.

The programme has been dropped in favour of religious coverage elsewhere across the corporation’s platforms.

It comes after the BBC decided to invite “confirmed atheist” and humanist campaigner Alice Roberts on the Good Friday edition of Desert Island Discs [BBC Radio 4] rather than a Christian figure …

Critics have said the BBC appeared to be deliberately abandoning the part of its audience that professed the Christian faith.

Andrea Williams, the chief executive of Christian Concern, said: “The BBC’s motto, ‘Nation shall speak peace unto nation’, is Biblical in origin. The more the BBC seeks to forget and minimise the primary role of the Christian faith shaping this nation, the darker all things will become. Easter reminds us of Christ’s victory over death, which is a good-news message for us all.”

But the BBC has rejected claims that it is ignoring the role of Christianity and religion in general after dropping the King’s College Easter service, which was shown on BBC Two last year and had been on television since 2010.

Sad.

Church of England unhelpful

One cannot say that the Church of England has helped to bring the meaning of Lent, Holy Week and Easter to the English consciousness.

On Palm Sunday, the Telegraph reported that a female Church of England cleric, the Ven Miranda Threlfall-Holmes, Archdeacon of Liverpool, wants to ‘smash the patriarchy’ and promote ‘anti-whiteness’:

Dr Threlfall-Holmes wrote on X, formerly Twitter: “I went to a conference on whiteness last autumn. It was very good, very interesting and made me realise: whiteness is to race as patriarchy is to gender.

“So yes, let’s have anti-whiteness, and let’s smash the patriarchy. That’s not anti-white, or anti-men, it’s anti-oppression.”

In response, users of X suggested that if the Cambridge-educated priest wanted “anti-whiteness” then she should “lead by example and resign”.

We all know about the recent questions that ‘conversions’ have raised with regard to those who would like asylum status.

Even more of us know how disappointing the recent Archbishops of Canterbury have been, particularly the present incumbent, Justin Welby.

Just because Easter was on March 31 this year, the earliest in some time, Welby has hoped since 2016 that Easter in the UK would be on a fixed day every year, putting us at odds with the rest of the Christian world outside of the Orthodox churches.

On Good Friday, The Times told us about a law that gained Royal Assent which would do that very thing: ‘How a 96-year-old law could stop Easter hopping around the calendar’.

Oddly enough, the Archbishop of Canterbury at the time, promoted the idea:

The Archbishop of Canterbury at the time, Randall Davidson, supported it and a private member’s bill was introduced by John Simon, the former home secretary and future chancellor. The bill was passed, but all it did was create a mechanism by which the date could be fixed — and that mechanism has still not been triggered.

The 1928 Easter Act:

has lain dormant since the moment it was given royal assent as the conditions for its use have never been satisfied — but a movement could be building to change that.

Welby thinks it’s a great idea:

In recent years the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby, has expressed support for the idea and Anglican leaders discussed the matter with Catholic and Orthodox Christians. Should there be agreement, the Easter Act 1928 could be triggered and Easter Sunday would have a permanent slot …

… In 2016, Welby said he was talking to other Christian leaders about fixing the date of Easter, adding: “I would expect it to be within five to ten years’ time, as most people have probably printed their calendars for the next five years and school holidays and so on are already fixed and it affects almost everything you do in the spring and summer. I would love to see it before I retire.”

Not surprisingly, secularists support the idea. Planning around the greatest Christian feast day is just too inconvenient:

“It’s ridiculous that almost a century after legislation was passed to fix the date for Easter, businesses, schools and families are still inconvenienced by Easter moving around the calendar,” said a spokesman for the National Secular Society. “Instead of waiting indefinitely for the elusive consensus from church leaders, the government should press on and fix the date so the rest of us can benefit from the certainty of a fixed spring break.”

In 2021, the Conservative government said it has no plans to bring forward a statutory instrument (SI) to make this happen:

Paul Scully, then the small business minister, told the National Secular Society that he appreciated their case but that there was as yet no intention to trigger the Easter Act until Christians gave their assent.

That would have to be all Christian communities, not just the CofE:

… it would never happen without clear assent from the Christian communities.

Let’s hope it stays that way.

Easter Day

Meanwhile, there are vicars up and down the country who are doing their best to preach the Gospel and manage local church finances rather than focus on identity politics. One of them is the Revd Greg Smith, a husband to wife Fran, father of four and grandfather to three youngsters. The Revd and Mrs Smith live in Shropshire.

On Easter Day, the Telegraph related his story in ‘How Britain lost faith in the Church of England’:

On Sunday, the Reverend Greg Smith, rector of St George’s in the small south Shropshire market town of Pontesbury, will be leading services in three of the six far-flung churches that make up the benefice – or extended parish – that he heads.

Two other clergy will assist him with the rest, one of them St Luke’s, Snailbeach, now designated a “festival church”, meaning usage is so low it is only open on holy and high days.

“I’ve got a 6.30am, a nine o’clock and a 10.30am,” says Smith. “That is going to be a lot of running around in the car, rushing out of one church and into the next, never spending time with people, not able to prepare properly” …

The impression created that the rural ministry of the Church of England is on its knees is not one accepted by Greg Smith, who in whatever spare time he has when not driving around in his car between churches, running a food bank, two community cafes for young people and a bereavement service, is compiling a report on the subject for his local bishop … 

The life he leads is, he agrees, relentless. There are currently 72 clergy in the diocese of Hereford in which Pontesbury sits, shouldering the burden of parish work in 406 churches, with nine vacancies, so it is doing better than Truro [the thinly-stretched diocese in Cornwall]. But three quarters of those priests in the diocese licenced to officiate at services are over 50 years of age.

And the workload on them isn’t made any easier when 90 per cent of the churches in the diocese are listed buildings. “It’s a challenge to care for one listed building, but I’ve got five and all have big bills round the corner,” reports Smith.

In St George’s, there is one pending for £250,000 for repairs to the stained glass at the east end of the church. Holy Trinity in Minsterley, the next village along, needs a similar sum.

“There are some grants available, but it’s a lot of paperwork that never stops.”

In the past, some of that form filling would have fallen to the church wardens, volunteers from the congregation, often with professional expertise. Yet a report earlier this month revealed that a quarter of all CofE parishes no longer have even a single church warden.

England’s Anglican churches need money to survive, yet:

A high-profile panel has urged an increase from £100 million to £1 billion in the fund already earmarked by the Church Commissioners to atone for Anglicanism’s historical involvement in the slave trade.

If the recommendation of the panel, whose chairman is Bishop Rosemarie Mallett of Croydon, is accepted, the cost would substantially reduce the Commissioners’ ability to give local churches the boost they are crying out for right now to keep things going.

As history tells us, the Church of England was prominent in the abolition of the slave trade in the 19th century, but let’s not allow facts to get in the way of identity politics.

Justin Welby’s acquiescence to close churches during the pandemic did not help, either.

Smith himself says of CofE wokery:

I’m not saying these things are not important but what I can say is that these are not conversations I am having locally. The only people who have spoken to me about reparations for slavery are other clergy.

People are much more exercised about keeping the [church] building warm and getting children, the younger generation, in to worship with us. The national church can feel a million miles away.

Another vicar has had the same experience, albeit in south London:

Like Greg Smith in Shropshire, the Reverend Ruth Burge-Thomas, vicar at Holy Spirit Church in Clapham since 2012, experiences the daily struggle to make the Church relevant to her local community in 2024.

A local girl whose mother grew up on one of the council estates in the parish, she argues that as vicar, “you are owned by the community. Whenever I go out, a five-minute walk often takes me 45 minutes because so many people stop me to talk about what is troubling them.”

I wish both vicars — and others like them — abundant blessings in their respective ministries.

On a church-related note, one happy event was King Charles’s walkabout outside of Windsor Castle on Easter morning. The Telegraph told us:

The King has re-emerged into public life for the first time since his diagnosis with cancer, in a walkabout with 56 handshakes, a homemade card, and a promise that he is “doing his best”.

He was “very touched” to see people there for him, he said, smiling broadly and thanking members of the public as their hopes that he “get well soon”, “keep going strong” and “never give in” rolled in.

At Windsor Castle, after the Easter Matins service which was his first public appearance since Christmas Day, the King was in his element after his doctors agreed he could resume the walkabouts he loves.

His mother would have been pleased, to say the least.

Well, while England’s Easter in 2024 might not have been the brightest and best in living memory, the remnant of believers holds fast to that which is good: the Gospel message — and the Resurrection.

What’s on Anglican priests’ minds: Church admits some migrant conversions could be bogus

February 2024’s newspapers and current affairs programmes featured quite a few articles and segments on English churches making a concerted effort to convert willing migrants in search of asylum.

Although the Church of England is top dog in that department, the Baptists are at it, too.

Chemical attacker a ‘Baptist’

On Tuesday, February 6, Britons were shocked to discover that the Newcastle man suspected of being responsible for the horrific and heartless chemical attack on a mother and two daughters in Clapham, South London, had become a Baptist beforehand. Neighbours and police also suffered chemical burns of varying degrees. The mother, still in hospital, is too unwell to speak with police.

It is thought that the man became acquainted with the woman online. She is also thought to be from a non-EU country.

The Telegraph carried the story, ‘Clapham attack suspect Abdul Ezedi “converted to Christianity” with Baptist Church’ (emphases mine):

The suspect in the Clapham chemical attack converted to Christianity with a Baptist church which “welcomes strangers”, The Telegraph understands.

Abdul Ezedi has been on the run for six days after allegedly dousing a 31-year-old woman and her two daughters, aged three and eight, with an alkaline substance and trying to run them over with a car before fleeing the scene in Clapham, south London.

Ezedi was convicted of sex offences in 2018 in Newcastle but was allowed to remain in the country because the sentence was not severe enough to reach the threshold for deportation.

It has emerged that Ezedi, 35, was twice refused asylum before being granted leave to remain in the UK after a priest vouched for his conversion, arguing that he was “wholly committed” to his new religion.

The Church of England and the Catholic Church in England and Wales both vehemently denied that Ezedi was converted to the faith via their denominations.

However, a spokesperson for Baptists Together, a movement of more than 1,800 local churches supported by regional associations, colleges, and national specialist teams, has now spoken out saying that it will “always adopt a posture of welcome and compassion to those fleeing war”.

Asked whether Ezedi was specifically converted via the Baptist denomination, a spokesperson declined to answer any further questions specifically referring to Ezedi “as it’s an ongoing police investigation”.

Their statement comes after the Daily Mail quoted a government source as saying that a reference from a Baptist chapel in the North East, where Ezedi was living, was crucial in persuading an immigration tribunal that he had converted from Islam to Christianity. This statement led to him being allowed to stay in Britain on the grounds of human rights.

The source said: “The one that really made a difference was from the Baptist church. One personal written submission talked of knowing Ezedi for four years, he had been attending church and they thought he was a genuine convert.”

It remains unknown which Baptist chapel helped Ezedi convert to Christianity. The Telegraph has contacted every Baptist church in Newcastle and every suburb that Ezedi was associated with, asking if they knew him and they either said that they did not, or did not respond.

The comment from Baptists Together comes after an evangelical church leader spoke out on Monday saying that priests must look for “red flags” when baptising asylum seekers because some are faking conversion …

In their statement in response to questions about Ezedi’s conversion, Baptists Together said: “We are fully aware of the questions being asked of our churches surrounding Abdul Shokoor Ezedi and broader queries around supporting asylum seekers.

“One of the most consistent and explicit teachings in the Bible is to ‘welcome the stranger’. In recognition of this, Baptist churches around the UK and across the world have always, and will always, adopt a posture of welcome and compassion to those fleeing war, persecution, famine and the consequences of climate change, irrespective of any intention to convert to Christianity.

“Listening to their stories, their experiences and their needs is a fundamental aspect of this welcome and, on occasion, as relationships develop between churches and refugees and asylum seekers, enquiries will be made to churches about issues of faith and belief.”

The statement was quite long; the article has the rest of it.

A pastor who is not a Baptist and who has taken part in migrant conversions sounded a bit of an alarm bell. I say ‘a bit’, because I have seen him on television news programmes, and he still seems committed to the project, by and large:

Pastor Graham Nicholls, the Director of Affinity, a network of 1,200 evangelical churches and ministries in the UK, said that church leaders “need discernment” to “test whether people are genuine in their beliefs”, adding that in some cases, some prospective converts are “faking it”.

He said “red flags” may consist of large numbers of people presenting as converts, an undue haste from people to receive some credible sign of being a Christian like baptism, a “rather mechanical assent to believing but without any obvious heart change”, and a general sense they might not be genuine.

He acknowledged that “these things are hard to judge” and that “we cannot see into people’s souls”, but added: “There seems to be a problem of asylum seekers claiming to have been converted to Christianity to support their applications.”

On February 9, it emerged that a Baptist minister was working with migrants being housed on the Bibby Stockholm barge, which once was used for oil industry workers. It is now docked at Portland on the south coast.

The Mail reported:

Dave Rees, an elder at Weymouth Baptist Church, defended its decision to carry out a mass conversion of residents of the Bibby Stockholm – with six already baptised and a further 36 to follow.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4 on Sunday, he said his church had a Farsi-speaking minister who knew the asylum seekers’ language and cultural practices.

‘Because we had this link we felt confident that the measures we put in place and the scrutiny we have, there’s no reason we would doubt these asylum seekers,’ Mr Rees said.

He said some of the men claimed they had been Christians in their home countries, while others had completed a 11-week Alpha [Anglican] course, which seeks to introduce possible converts to the basics of the Christian faith. 

‘Obviously, we need to make sure that they believe in Jesus, they believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, they repent of their sins and also they want to start a new life in the church,’ he said.

‘And they have to give a public testimony at their baptism, which they did in a native language and was translated into English.’

On Wednesday, February 7, Conservative MP Tim Loughton raised a question about this to Rishi Sunak at Prime Minister’s Questions:

MPs have raised concerns that migrants from majority Muslim countries are converting to Christianity in order to claim they are at risk of persecution in their home nations due to their religious beliefs. 

Sussex MP Tim Loughton raised the issue in Parliament on Wednesday, asking Prime Minister Rishi Sunak: ‘The Archbishop of Canterbury has admitted that since taking office, the attendance at the Church of England has dropped by 15% and in the 10 years to Covid, the number of baptisms in the Church of England has fallen from 140,000-a-year to 87,000.

‘So Christianity in the UK seems to be on the wane unless apparently, you are from a Muslim country in the middle of an asylum claim. We’re now told one in seven occupants of the Bibby Stockholm have suddenly become practising Christians.

‘Can I ask the Prime Minister that given that the Church of England has now issued secret guidance for clergy supporting asylum applications for these Damascene conversions, who is the church accountable to and are taxpayers being scammed by the Archbishop?’

Mr Sunak replied that Mr Cleverly [Home Secretary James Cleverly] had requested more information on migrants converting to Christianity.

So far, this is what we know:

The Home Office has admitted it has no idea how many asylum seekers have been allowed to stay in the UK after converting to Christianity, as the hunt for Ezedi continues.

It is believed that Afghan sex offender Ezedi persuaded churches to support his claim, and was even given a written testimonial by a Baptist minister as well as additional backing from the Catholic church, sources told the Mail.

The findings of Mr Cleverly’s investigation are set to form part of an internal review that he commissioned following the attack in south London last week.

Home Office sources said that officials in the department have struggled to find data relating to how many asylum seekers have cited their apparent conversion to Christianity.

A source previously told the Mail that a reference from a Baptist chapel in the North East, where Ezedi was living, was crucial in persuading an immigration tribunal that he had converted from Islam to Christianity. This led to him being allowed to stay in Britain on the grounds of human rights.

‘The one that really made a difference was from the Baptist church,’ a government source said. ‘One personal written submission talked of knowing Ezedi for four years, he had been attending church and they thought he was a genuine convert.’

Further backing was provided by the Catholic Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle, the source claimed.

The Home Office has said caseworkers are trained to only grant protection to those in genuine need by assessing claims ‘in the round’ and not taking priests’ testimony as ‘determinative’. 

Archbishop of Canterbury strikes back

The Mail article says that the Archbishop of Canterbury issued a statement following Loughton’s question in Parliament:

Following Prime Minister’s Questions, the Archbishop of Canterbury issued a statement hitting out at the ‘mischaracterisation of the role of churches and faith groups in the asylum system’.

‘It is the job of the government to protect our borders and of the courts to judge asylum cases,’ he said. 

‘The church is called to love, mercy and do justice. 

‘I encourage everyone to avoid irresponsible and inaccurate comments – and let us not forget that at the heart of this conversation are vulnerable people whose lives are precious in the sight of God.’

The Church of England has recently come under fire for allegedly ‘facilitating industrial-scale bogus asylum claims‘, with former Home Secretaries Suella Braverman and Dame Priti Patel accusing church leaders of ‘political activism’. 

Regardless of what the Archbishop of Canterbury says, this is what many Britons are thinking:

Former Anglican vicar tells his story

On Thursday, February 8, The Telegraph‘s Allison Pearson posted a column on a former Anglican vicar who got in touch with her about his experience in Darlington, in the north of England, ‘”I refuse to be complicit in baptism dishonesty” says Free Church of England vicar’.

Firth, 41, left the Church of England in 2020 and now serves as a vicar for the Free Church of England, established in the 19th century.

It should be noted that the Free Church of England is separate from the Church of England. The Free Church of England is part of GAFCON (Global Anglican Future Conference), a group of Anglican churches that have broken away from Canterbury’s spiritual leadership.

The article has a photo of the Revd Matthew Firth wearing a dog collar and a rugby jersey. He seems affable.

He told Pearson his story about the time when he was still a Church of England priest in the Diocese of Durham:

In 2018, when the Reverend Matthew Firth took up his new post at St Cuthbert’s, the church which has been at the heart of the north-eastern market town of Darlington since the 12th century, he was eager to bring new souls to the faith he passionately believes in.

It didn’t take long, however, for Matthew to figure out that there was something suspicious about the large number of souls from the Middle East who were queuing up to be converted to Christianity.

“When I arrived, lots of adult baptisms were already booked in, which was highly unusual. The vast majority, if not all of them, were asylum seekers who had already failed in their initial application for asylum. Clearly, if you were rejected, the next step was to book in for baptism,” Matthew told me on Thursday on the phone from his home in York.

All of the candidates for baptism at St Cuthbert’s were men, mainly from Iran and Syria. The new vicar decided to allow some of the services to go ahead – “I felt I had to honour them, I wasn’t going to just cancel” – but, when they took place, he says the baptisms felt like a kind of performance.

The photographs taken afterwards confirmed his suspicions:

“I got the distinct impression that people were trying to put on a sense of emotion that their baptism had happened. So, when the photos are taken, it looks as though they’re absolutely overwhelmed with emotion. To create a situation where it looks as though this is totally above board and genuine.”

Usually, the relatives of the newly baptised take a few discreet photos. A vast number of pictures were taken at the baptisms of the asylum seekers. To the astonished reverend, it looked like a professional job. “All of a sudden, literally, a couple of hours later, you’d spot on Facebook that all of their Facebook banner pictures and profile pictures have been changed to the baptism photos. All of them, just flooded with baptism photos.

“And, again, it doesn’t take a genius to work out that this is to present a case. It’s to say, ‘Look at my Facebook profile! It’s full of Christian stuff. I’m a genuine Christian.’ But this was literally overhauling a Facebook profile to create a new brand [for themselves].”

The Cambridge astrophysics graduate discovered more while in post at St Cuthbert’s. According to him baptisms were turning into a racket there:

… he had stumbled upon “a conveyor belt, a veritable industry of asylum baptisms”. It was a blatant transaction.

As Matthew recalls, “There was one particular individual who was a Muslim who had gained permission to stay in England. He wasn’t seeking baptism himself, because he’d been granted asylum. And he was always around and he would bring cohorts of these people seeking asylum to the church. It would usually be after the service.

“So, I’d be at the back shaking hands with the regular congregation as they were leaving, and this Muslim guy would bring these people to me and he would immediately say, ‘These want baptism, these want baptism, these want baptism’.”

On occasions, Matthew claims he even saw money changing hands. “I observed things, you know, quietly slipping in the pocket, people slipping him money.”

Good grief. You mean actual physical cash? “Yeah, I saw that happening. Now, it’s obviously never as overt as, ‘Here you go, here’s the money, get me baptised.’ But you see people going away into corners and slipping money to the middleman who is bringing loads of them into the church.”

Then he discovered he was expected to give a written reference of sorts for these newly baptised migrants:

Once the asylum seekers had ticked baptism off their How to Win the Right to Stay in Britain list, approaches were made to Matthew to provide evidence for an immigration tribunal that their conversion to Christianity was genuine.

“I’d immediately get a letter. As soon as those baptisms happened, literally a couple of days later, I hear from their lawyer saying, ‘Right, can you tell me about this person’s faith and church involvement, their evangelistic work and what they do for the church’.”

The lawyers specialised in immigration law and Matthew got the impression that “a lot of it was on legal aid”. Was he under any pressure to provide a more convincing picture of these so-called Christian conversions?

“Yes, absolutely. So, when I sent emails to these lawyers saying all I can tell you is that such and such attends Sunday service, the reply came back, ‘Well, yes, but can you please say that our clients do evangelism? And please can you say that they help the adults around the church? Try to fill out a picture of them being really active Christians’.”

Matthew refused point blank. “Well, no, sorry, I’m not going to say that, because it’s not true. Or I don’t have any evidence of it.”

… he got the firm impression that immigration lawyers expect CofE vicars to be helpful and supportive to their clients …

The reverend put a brake on the asylum/baptism conveyor belt at St Cuthbert’s, although he never denied anyone the chance to be baptised. “What I did say is, ‘Well, great! Come to church for six months.’ And then they all just drifted away, because it’s not genuine.” He points out that a couple of the men who were granted asylum were never seen at church again.

He told Pearson that there were a few ‘progressive activists’ (his words) in his church who were working with refugees and objected to his approach:

He was subject to what he calls “low-level bullying” and interpersonal hostility.

Firth says that these frequent baptisms occur where asylum seekers are being lodged pending their claims’ outcome:

Actually, I’m aware of it going on in many parishes in England, I know of so many examples where it’s happening. It’s in the areas where the Government places people who are seeking asylum.

As for senior clergy, Firth said that whatever boosts baptism figures in a sluggish denomination pleases them:

It’s very encouraging for them to have lots of adult baptisms, he says, “Because it gives a sense that they’re being successful, that the faith or their ministry has been successful in winning converts”.

“It’s very good for their pride. And, of course, it is wonderful when you have lots of people who are adults who have come to faith. But, in their heart of hearts, I think they know that a lot of these people are not genuine.”

He cites Mohammad Eghtedarian, a former curate at Liverpool cathedral who fled Iran as a refugee and was a brave and genuine convert to Christianity. “He said to me that, in his experience at Liverpool cathedral, probably over half of the asylum seekers were not genuine in terms of their baptism requests.”

One of Liverpool cathedral’s asylum-seeker converts was Emad Al Swealmeen, who was taking a bomb in a taxi to a maternity hospital on Remembrance Sunday in 2021 when it detonated, killing him. Al Swealmeen had been refused asylum in 2014 and lost an appeal three years later before going through a Christianity course run for asylum seekers.

However, it was the Abdul Ezedi story that prompted Firth to contact Pearson:

That, and the disingenuous response from the Archbishop of Canterbury, which infuriates him. “I think the church is allowing itself to be used by people who do not have pure motives, in fact, people who have pretty terrible motives.

“It’s not a direct thing, but it’s a sense of naivety; turning a blind eye. Vicars are acting in a way that increases the likelihood of many people who don’t have strong claims actually getting over the line. And a certain proportion of those people will be here with a background of criminality. So while it’s not direct wrongdoing from the church, there is complicity, which is not right. You know, it’s simply not right.

“I’m not saying that all clergy that conduct these baptisms are doing that, but there is a significant element. And when Justin Welby says it’s not the church’s responsibility to judge asylum applications, that’s the Home Office, that’s not being truthful.”

Firth was also unhappy about Welby’s criticism of people who say the conversions should be conducted with more discernment:

It is insulting. There are a lot of Christians who are discerning and wise, and they can see what’s happening. And they are concerned about our culture and our society and the impact of huge, huge levels of illegal immigration on those things. They are rightly concerned about that.

And for Justin Welby to sort of tar them all with this brush of being unwelcoming and uncaring and so on is frankly unacceptable. He’s suggesting the clergy shouldn’t be discerning. Well, we should; we have to administer the baptism in a discerning way.

Pearson and Firth then discussed Church of England policies in general:

I mention a document called “Supporting Asylum Seekers – Guidance for Church of England Clergy”, which teaches vicars how to assist asylum seekers.

“Of course, again, they’ve been clever there. They’ll just say clergy are facing these situations and all we’re doing is producing a document to support those who asked us for advice. But there is an ideological support for the culture of mass immigration that we’re seeing.”

Matthew compares the situation with the Civil Service, where there is resistance to enacting Conservative policies like the Rwanda plan. “Actually, there’s an equivalent civil service at Church House, Westminster, which is producing all of this guidance.”

Firth then gave his views on asylum, excerpted below:

He speaks eloquently about the need to be hospitable to people who genuinely need asylum. “But I liken national hospitality to the home. You could welcome people into your home and show the sacrificial hospitality and that’s fine. But if the hospitality that you’re showing fundamentally undermines the functioning of the household, then actually we’re not called to that in the Church …

“So if people are receiving our national hospitality and then they commit crimes, or they go on huge marches or do something that undermines the values that our particular national home espouses, then the equivalent is somebody being welcomed into your private home and messing up the house. Or damaging our national home. And if that hospitality is being abused in various ways, then you have to look again and say, No, no, we can’t do this.”

As for the mass migration we are currently seeing, legal and illegal:

He adds: “Also, there’s a cultural aspect, when you have very large population movements in a short space of time which we have had since 1997, then that does undermine the culture of the host nation.”

Matthew asks me if that makes sense. It really does. In a bitter irony, the Church of England may hasten its own demise by carrying out hundreds, possibly thousands of fake baptisms of men who remain devout Muslims.

He laughs. “I don’t think the Church of England has really thought that through. The House of Bishops and the vast majority of clergy in the Church of England are aligned with Left-wing politics. And they are very comfortable with what we’re seeing in terms of the levels of immigration. And they would regard somebody like me as being Right-wing and unkind.

“But actually, all I’m doing is just not misusing a sacrament. And also choosing not to be complicit in dishonesty. And also choosing not to be undermining of culture that happens with mass immigration, you know, I think I care about the people who are already here, you know, as well as people who may be genuine asylum seekers” …

“I am going on the record here because there’s a national untruth being told,” he says. “The churches say, ‘There are no faults. No, we’re just trying to welcome people. Nothing to see here.’ Well, there is something to see here. And Justin Welby, I think he’s been untruthful in the way he’s presented things. ‘Our vicars are just getting on with being welcoming,’ he says.

“But, actually, the story is one of being used by bad men like Abdul Ezedi who hurt innocent people. The Church of England needs to be exposed for its shameful part in all this.”

That day, The Telegraph posted a rapid follow-up article, which Allison Pearson co-authored with Charles Hymas, ‘Church of England has become “conveyor belt for asylum seeker fake conversions”‘, in which the Diocese of Durham took exception to Firth’s criticisms. The diocese said he had not told them anything about his experience with regard to baptisms:

Mr Firth – a self-avowed traditional evangelical Christian – said the asylum seekers “drifted away” after he introduced the six month rule but alleged he was “cold shouldered” by the senior clergy, which culminated in his departure from his post and decision to join the Free Church of England …

A spokesman for the Diocese of Durham said: “We do not recognise the picture these allegations present and have not seen any evidence of such claims.

“Mr Firth no longer ministers in the Church of England, however at no point during his time in office did he raise any of these claims as a concern or an issue. Had he done so, we would have looked into the matter. We would query whether he has ever raised his concerns with the authorities.”

Regardless, I saw Allison Pearson on Patrick Christys Tonight (GB News) either that night or the next and she had nothing bad to say about the Revd Mr Firth.

On February 9, Telegraph readers had their say in ‘It’s not for the Church to act as immigration officials’, excerpted below, with each paragraph representing a different reader’s opinion:

It’s not called religious conversion, it’s called playing the system. You can’t blame them for trying. We can however blame the fools who are naive enough to let them.

Islam forbids Muslims from leaving their faith. Apostasy can mean a death sentence so it is very rare that they convert to another religion. This is just another ruse to remain in the country.

Surely churches have a duty of care to their own community which overrides specious asylum contrivances? Or so I would hope.

The Church should not be converting asylum seekers to Christianity until they are granted the right to stay here. This is all a scam promoted by immigration lawyers and asylum charities.

The reasoning behind the granting of asylum has been inverted and the safety of British citizens is of no account, it is only the welfare of fit, healthy, young men that pay £3,000 to cross illegally from a perfectly safe country that we should consider?

On Saturday, February 10, The Guardian had an article about the Diocese of Durham’s response to Firth’s comments in The Telegraph, ‘C of E refutes claims of “conveyor belt” of asylum seeker fake conversions’:

The Church of England has refuted a claim that it operated a “conveyor belt for asylum seeker fake conversions”, saying parish records disproved the eye-catching allegation …

Lee Anderson, the former Conservative party [deputy] chairman, said: “The Church of England is in my opinion encouraging people to lie about their faith in order to claim asylum.”

On Thursday, a former C of E priest claimed the church was complicit in a “conveyor belt and veritable industry of asylum baptisms”. Matthew Firth, who was a priest in the north of England, told the Telegraph that about 20 asylum seekers had sought baptisms at his church to support their applications, and he believed there were “probably” thousands of asylum baptisms in the C of E.

Paul Butler, the bishop of Durham, has said Firth’s claims were “imaginative” and “some distance from reality”.

In a statement, Butler said: “Mr Firth does not offer any evidence to support these claims, however a check of the parish records quickly reveals … a total of 15 people (13 adults, 2 infants) who may have been asylum seekers have been baptised over the past 10 years. Of these, seven were baptised by Mr Firth himself.

“As priest in charge, he will have been aware of his responsibility to check the authenticity of candidates. If there was any sign of anything amiss, Mr Firth should have reported this. Had he raised any concerns at any point with senior staff … they would of course have been taken seriously and investigated. He did not do so.”

I find the bishop’s baptism number from St Cuthbert’s interesting, unless Firth managed to stop the bogus baptisms quickly.

Misplaced concern: the wrong people are being accommodated

That day, the former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey — Lord Carey — sided with Britons in his opinion piece for The Telegraph, ‘The Church must not turn a blind eye to the impact of mass migration on Britain’:

… the Church of England’s opposition to the Rwanda legislation for example has disturbed me by its ferocity and intensity. The Rwanda plan has been denounced from pulpits up and down the land. And in my increasingly long memory, I have never known the Peers Spiritual – the 26 bishops who sit by right in the House of Lords – lay down such an array of detailed amendments.

My disagreement with the Archbishop and bishops in the House, therefore, is not with their compassion and Christian care for others, but their blindness to what migration is doing to our country – our culture, our infrastructure and our common life.

We have been here before and we have failed to do anything about it. In 2010, I joined Parliamentarians including former Speaker, the late Baroness Boothroyd, and the great Labour MP, Frank Field, in signing the Balanced Migration Group’s Declaration. This called on the major parties to make manifesto pledges to prevent the UK’s population reaching 70 million in under 20 years, as it was forecast to at the time.

How wrong we were. Not, as it turns out, in making the declaration, but in trusting official projections. According to the Office for National Statistics, we will reach that 70 million figure at least four years early. By mid-2036, we are now projected to grow to 73.7 million.

So my concern and attention is also for those affected by a severe lack of housing and services, a situation which is reaching breaking point in poorer areas. The elites are well-protected, but Britain’s poorest have a different experience. An experiment in mass immigration has been foisted upon them without their consent, changing their lives and their communities.

I’ve been surprised therefore by the thin-skinned nature of the church’s response in this latest controversy. When you raise your head above the parapet you must expect to be criticised. I know I will be over this article. But the Church hierarchy seems to be denying that there is a problem at all, or anything questionable about its own actions and statements.

One result of this is that churches stand accused of boosting the credentials of asylum seekers and gullibly accepting insincere conversions. This is not in fact so, because it is the Home Office and the judiciary’s job to apply the asylum rules – not the Church.

But the Church of England’s guidance gives information to clergy on how to “mount a personal campaign” if an application is refused. It does not give much advice on how to discern whether these conversions are authentic, long-standing and life-changing. While it is true that most clergy are experienced enough to deal with these sorts of pastoral situations, the Church should do more to insist that baptism preparation is rigorous.

The truly depressing thing about this is that Christian converts in some countries are among the most persecuted minorities in the world. Genuine converts in countries where a considerable risk is taken by “apostasising” find themselves undermined by a handful of false cases where people are gaming the system.

In recent years, church leaders have been slow to come forward to join me in making representations to the Home Office and the UNHCR, to ensure that flows of refugees from Syria and Afghanistan have included persecuted Christians. I am Patron of Barnabas Aid, a charity founded in the UK, which has supported hundreds of persecuted Syrian and Afghan Christians in gaining asylum in countries like Australia and Brazil. But the UK government has never accepted a single one of these most persecuted Christian converts living in daily fear in hostile environments …

… Our politicians and church leaders should do much more to listen to the voices of those struggling communities which feel alienated and marginalised by unprecedented rates of immigration.

And those seeking asylum should only be given that honour on the strict understanding that they must leave behind the political and moral structures of their former societies that are incompatible with the open, democratic values of their new homes.

Well said!!

On Monday, February 12, Christian Today had an article about the Bishop of Chelmsford Guli Francis-Dehqani’s appearance on the BBC Sunday Programme. Francis-Dehqani is an Iranian refugee herself and has been vociferous in the House of Lords on the Safety of Rwanda Bill, which was still being debated there yesterday, the 14th. Debates will continue when the Lords reconvene.

Christian Today stated:

Bishop Guli Francis-Dehqani appeared on the BBC Sunday Programme to discuss claims that the Church of England has been complicit in asylum seekers gaming the system with fake conversions.

She said that “inevitably” there would be “a small number of cases” of people trying to “scam us”, but that preparation for baptism was “very rigorous” and that some people even abandon it because it takes too long.

“We take seriously our responsibilities, but we also know that as Christians, our primary responsibility is one of welcome and hospitality and support and teaching, but we need to do that in a way that is that is wise and, and is aware that occasionally there are people who might try and scam us,” she said.

The bishop, who came to Britain as a refugee from Iran, said she was open to a review of the Church of England’s current guidance for vicars around conversion, but added that there could never be complete certainty.

“It’s very difficult to look into the hearts of people ever and be 100 per cent. And that goes for whether that person is from Britain or an immigrant from elsewhere,” she said …

Later in the discussion she said that the onus was on clergy to “be as confident as they possibly can be” that a candidate for baptism is sincere and understands what it means.

“Preparation is in most cases very rigorous and that’s right and proper. I think, God forbid, you do take that seriously regardless of where people are coming from. It’s just that in the end, it’s impossible to prove 100 per cent,” she said.

… she said it was “wrong” that attention was being focused on “a very small number” of alleged abuses because “it’s diverting attention away from the systemic problems, which is that we have an immigration system that’s overwhelmed and inefficient”.

Seriously, I do not think that preparation for baptism in the Church of England is ‘in most cases very rigorous’. I don’t believe that for one second. It probably is in my church, but seeing how woke our clergy are, it probably isn’t elsewhere.

You can read more about Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani’s views in her Telegraph article of February 5.

Bogus conversions are key in avoiding deportation

The biggest showstopper came on Monday, February 12, with The Times‘s article, ‘Revealed: How judges let criminals use Christianity to escape deportation’:

Murderers, sex offenders and drug dealers are among migrants who have escaped deportation by claiming they have converted to Christianity, The Times has found …

In one case, a Bangladeshi man who had served 12 years in prison for murdering his wife successfully appealed against the Home Office’s attempts to deport him, saying he was a Christian convert and that he would be at risk in his predominantly Muslim community in Bangladesh.

A judge allowed him to stay in the UK based on rights enshrined in Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which prevents removal where there are substantial grounds for believing that an individual would face serious harm from torture or from inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment …

The findings come from a Times analysis of asylum judgments that lays bare the scale of the abuse of Britain’s immigration system by foreign criminals who claim they are Christian converts to escape deportation …

Analysis suggests that Iranians have been the most successful in avoiding deportation. In several cases, a claimant’s deportation was blocked even when the judge hearing their appeal concluded that their conversion was not genuine. Judges said that even the “perception” of being a Christian could result in lashes in Iran.

One case involved an Iranian who had been sentenced to 18 months in prison for assault in the UK and was scheduled for deportation by the Home Office. The man appealed and a judge ruled that he could not be deported, despite concluding that he was “not a Christian convert”, because he had covered his arms in tattoos “dominated by Christian imagery” and the Iranian authorities would believe he had converted.

In another case an Iranian man convicted of sexual assault and sentenced to seven and a half years in jail successfully appealed against deportation on the grounds that he had converted. He said that he had a tattoo of a cross, and would therefore be at risk in Iran. An Upper Tribunal judge ordered that his case be reheard after a Home Office appeal.

Appeals heard in the Upper Tribunal can add to an already severe backlog in the asylum system:

The Times has analysed thousands of Upper Tribunal cases heard since 2018 …

While many fail to convince judges that their conversion is genuine or that it would result in persecution, their appeals often delay their deportation by several months and in some cases years. They have also added to the long backlog of immigration cases, costing the taxpayer large sums in accommodation costs.

The Upper Tribunal covers only a fraction of the total number of asylum hearings and is the only stage at which judgments are published. Most individuals are granted anonymity.

Before reaching the Upper Tribunal court, cases are first heard by Home Office caseworkers and refusals can be appealed to the First-Tier Tribunal.

Since January 2023 there have been 28 cases heard at the Upper Tribunal in which a claimant cited conversion to Christianity as a reason to be granted asylum, about 1 per cent of cases heard in the period. Of those, seven appeals were approved, 13 dismissed and the judge ordered a new hearing in eight cases.

Five of the seven migrants granted the right to stay had been convicted of serious criminal offences.

Some judges are discerning, such as the one in this case:

One case involved a Pakistani man who arrived as a student but overstayed his visa and claimed asylum, claiming that his evangelical preaching in the UK would put him in danger because he would either engage in activities that would put him at risk or would have to refrain from doing so to avoid the risk.

The judge noted that a reverend had vouched for the man’s Christianity in oral evidence, despite the asylum seeker never attending his church. All the man did to evidence his newly found evangelism was to “hand out leaflets outside Tooting Tube station” with the reverend.

The judge also said that the man only discovered his evangelical calling after his first asylum claim was refused.

Now we come to comic relief as asylum seekers explain their understanding of Christianity:

There were several cases involving migrants claiming to have converted to Christianity who failed to answer the most basic questions about their apparent faith.

An Iranian woman claimed asylum on arrival at an airport in 2020, saying that she had converted to Christianity from Islam. Being returned to Iran would breach her rights under the ECHR because she would not be able to practise her faith, she claimed.

But the judge in her case concluded she was not a genuine Christian and believed she may have duped a church into granting her a baptism certificate. She failed a series of simple questions about Christianity, saying for example that Lent, which precedes Easter, was a “celebration four weeks before Christmas when you light a candle”.

An Iranian man who was sentenced to four years in jail for drug and driving offences and resisting arrest managed to get his deportation order overturned despite referring to “Black Friday” rather than “Good Friday” and getting the denomination of his church wrong.

One asylum seeker admitted that he attended a synagogue for more than a month without realising that he was not in a Christian church.

One tribunal judge doubted that a claimant was “attracted to Christianity because it fulfilled a deep spiritual need”, given that they had told the court that “being a Christian is freedom and you can drink alcohol and be with girls”.

Another asylum seeker was unable to tell an interviewing officer the story of Easter, said incorrectly that Jesus had ten disciples, and was unable to say what day Christmas fell on.

Churches reconsider rules

The Times says that, in light of recent revelations about bogus conversions, the Baptists and the Anglicans are reconsidering their guidance:

The Times can reveal that Baptist ministers will be told that they must “exercise wisdom before considering supporting asylum claims”, in an update to guidance on converting migrants to Christianity.

Steve Tinning, who works for the public issues team of the Baptist Union of Great Britain, said it did have some guidance for ministers in giving evidence in asylum cases, but that this dated to 2018.

“The landscape has changed somewhat and so it is being reviewed this week,” he said at an event on Thursday. “I also agree that we can never be 100 per cent certain of the authenticity of any conversion.”

At the same event, a Church of England bishop said for the first time that the church was willing to review its guidance for priests to see “if it can be enhanced” to guide clergy on dealing with asylum seekers who wish to be baptised.

Even the Bishop of Chelmsford has now admitted that the CofE should look at the matter again:

The bishop of Chelmsford, the Right Rev Guli Francis-Dehqani, who was born in Iran, said: “I don’t see why there would be any reason why we couldn’t look at that guidance again to see if it needs updating and refreshing, if it can be enhanced in any way. I think there would be openness to that.”

Conclusion

More work, rather than platitudes, needs do be done.

I hadn’t realised that so many of these claimants come from Iran. There must be an informal instruction there to claim asylum and go through a baptism while waiting to be processed.

St Paul must be rolling in his grave. He would not have approved of this at all.

What’s on Anglican priests’ minds: a call for Justin Welby’s resignation, relating to Post Office scandal

Last Friday, I wrote about Britain’s Post Office scandal, which has been going on since 1999 and is only now, one hopes, coming to a favourable settlement with subpostmasters later this year.

My post provides a summary of the financial injustice done to subpostmasters, who are pillars of their communities, and of one of the personalities involved, Paula Vennells, who was a CEO of the Post Office during part of that time.

Last Tuesday, January 9, 2024, Ms Vennells says she handed back her CBE, awarded to her for services to the Post Office, although only the monarch has the ultimate power to revoke it.

On January 13, it was revealed that the then-Prime Minister Theresa May’s government pushed for Vennells to receive this honour in 2019. The Telegraph reported (emphases mine):

Theresa May’s government drove through a CBE for Paula Vennells, the former head of the Post Office, despite warnings made on the honours committee about the Horizon [Fujitsu UK accounting system] scandal, it has been reported.

… in which more than 900 Post Office workers were wrongly prosecuted after faulty software in the Horizon IT accounting system gave the appearance that money was missing from branches.

Handing back the honour, she said she was “truly sorry for the devastation” caused to sub-postmasters whose “lives were torn apart by being wrongly accused and wrongly prosecuted”.

Ms Vennells received a CBE – the second most prestigious below a knighthood or damehood – in the 2019 New Year Honours list.

The Sunday Times reported that at least one member of the main honours committee questioned the wisdom of giving her a CBE given the controversy over the Post Office’s treatment of sub-postmasters and the fact that she was still in the role.

According to the paper, a source with knowledge of the exchange said that concerns were “brushed aside”. Another source said that responsibility for highlighting potential concerns lay with the “sponsoring department”, in this case the Department for Business which nominated her for the award.

A senior civil servant meanwhile recalled that there had been a view that Ms Vennells had “inherited” the Horizon scandal and was “clearing up rather than being the cause”.

Ms Vennells served as chief executive of the Post Office from 2012 to 2019. Until 2015, the Post Office continued to bring private prosecutions over cash shortfalls at branches …

The main committee then confirms a list, which goes to the prime minister and ultimately the monarch.

A spokeswoman for Mrs May said: “The honours system is an independent process which awards honours to more than 2,000 people each year. As prime minister, the Rt Hon Theresa May MP always respected the independence of this system but thinks it is right Paula Vennells has handed back her CBE.”

The Times has more detail on what went on behind the scenes:

Sir Ian Cheshire, now chairman of Channel 4, chaired the sub-committee that recommended Vennells for the most prestigious honour below a knighthood or damehood.

Sources said she was nominated by the Department for Business, although Greg Clark, then business secretary, was not involved. Her name was discussed by the main honours committee, chaired by Sir Jonathan Stephens — then the civil servant responsible for Northern Ireland — in October 2018.

At the time, a group action brought by 555 sub-postmasters persecuted by the Post Office was about to reach trial in the High Court.

Mr Justice Fraser would the following year issue a damning indictment of the Post Office’s conduct, finding that the Horizon system had been defective, despite strenuous denials by the company and Vennells over many years …

A source close to Cheshire denied he brushed aside concerns and said that both committees were reassured about Vennells’ fitness for the honour by civil servants.

Vennells was named CBE in the 2019 new year honours list. In February that year, she announced that she was stepping down as chief executive of the Post Office and was appointed a non-executive director at the Cabinet Office …

Until 2015, the Post Office continued to bring private prosecutions over cash shortfalls at branches that were actually caused by glitches in an IT system supplied by the Japanese giant Fujitsu. “This was her reward for bending her conscience and holding the line,” the source claimed.

Here is where Welby starts to come in:

A source suggested Vennells, a part-time priest who had an unremarkable business career until she ran the Post Office from 2012 to 2019, was being rewarded by the government for taking a tough approach to controlling costs, including by refusing to acknowledge wrongdoing in its pursuit of sub-postmasters.

This cost control involved making the Post Office look attractive for a possible sale. Allegations are said to have revolved around a suspense account which was transferred to a profit account. It is also alleged that personal contributions from subpostmasters making up for their shortfalls caused by a faulty accounting system went into the suspense account. More needs to come out about that, but it is an interesting line.

For now, the article simply says:

The government kept hold of the Post Office when Royal Mail was privatised via a stock market float in 2013. But when Vennells was made chief executive, ministers were hoping to spin it off through a mutualisation process in which it would end up being owned by staff, like John Lewis department stores and Waitrose supermarkets.

With more than 11,500 branches, the Post Office was loss-making and reliant on a government subsidy: taxpayers contributed more than £1 billion during Vennells’s time in charge, although the annual amount was tapered from a peak of £210 million in 2013 to £60 million by 2019. Vennells said in a 2014 interview: “You’ve got to get to commercial sustainability before you can mutualise it.”

Here is more from the article about Vennells as an Anglican priest:

Vennells, 64, was for many years a part-time curate who took Sunday services at a church near her home in Bedford. In 2014, she said that her faith “influences my values and how I approach things” and that “I hear from my parishioners if the Post Office does something they don’t like … They have no compunction.”

Somehow she managed to get plum business appointments, although not everyone thinks she was the sharpest knife in the drawer:

She joined the Post Office in 2007 as network director, having started out as a graduate trainee at the consumer goods company Unilever before moving to L’Oréal, Dixons, Argos and Premier Inn owner Whitbread. Someone who worked with Vennells at an early stage of her career expressed surprise at her inclusion in the 2019 new year honours list. He said: “She was a perfectly nice and pleasant person, but she was never going to be one of our champion business leaders who achieved a huge turnaround. It smacked of ‘jobs for the boys’.”

On January 14, the Mail dredged up a Vennells talk in London from May 2018:

The Post Office was already mired in the Horizon IT scandal when its deeply-religious chief executive, Reverend Paula Vennells, agreed to take part in a panel discussion about business ethics.

The talk, attended by City firm executives, was held at London‘s Canary Wharf in May 2018. Apparently undeterred by the crisis unfolding on her watch – and certainly making no mention of it – Ms Vennells declared herself ‘proud of the Post Office… a really special organisation in terms of its values’.

After explaining how her values came ‘from the glory of God’, she turned to the subject of making mistakes.

‘When we mess up, which we do every day,’ she told the audience, ‘my faith tells me that I can be forgiven, that shortfalls are a perfectly human thing to do and that I can always start again; always, always, always, start again. You can put things right.

‘And for me, I found that very liberating because… you can get it wrong and you can move on.’

Would that she had shown the same mercy to the subpostmasters!

The article says likewise:

Alas! If recent events have shown anything it is that, in the temporal world at least, forgiveness is not quite so easy to come by.

It also points out:

… crucially, she stopped short of admitting responsibility for the debacle which saw more than 700 sub-postmasters prosecuted for crimes they hadn’t committed. Hundreds were left bankrupt, humiliated or in prison. Among those convicted, four committed suicide and 33 others have since died without seeing justice.

A fellow Christian among the subpostmasters told the Mail:

‘Forgiveness comes when you admit the mistakes you’ve made and atone for them,’ Tom Hedges, a 70-year-old former sub-postmaster in the village of Hogsthorpe, Lincolnshire, told the Mail.

Mr Hedges, who is also a lay minister and church warden, was wrongly convicted in 2010 of £60,000 worth of theft and false accounting and given a seven-month prison sentence. His conviction was overturned at the Court of Appeal in 2021.

‘It’s not as simple as saying sorry and moving on,’ he added. ‘We’ve had apologies from her before but they’re all couched in words along the lines that none of it was her fault. Before we can forgive, we need to hear the truth’ …

Former sub-postmaster Mr Hedges said: ‘She is now experiencing the wrath of public opinion that I and all the other innocent people felt when we were convicted and thrown out of our post offices.

‘My human and Christian side feels for her for that. But the other side of me thinks that she brought it upon herself.’

We learn more about Vennells’s life story:

Ms Vennells, the eldest of three children, grew up in Denton, five miles east of Manchester. Her father was an industrial chemist and later a research fellow at Manchester University. Her mother was a bookkeeper.

A keen Girl Guide, she won a funded place at private Manchester High School and, after graduating with a degree in French and Russian at Bradford University, was accepted on to Unilever’s graduate scheme before climbing the managerial ladder …

Ms Vennells, who likes to ski and sails dinghies, lives with her husband John, an engineer, in a £2million farmhouse in Bedfordshire.

Despite giving back her gong, she is now facing demands to hand back the £2.2million bonuses she got during her tenure as Post Office chief. Including her salary, she took home a total of £4.5million for that period.

In the weeks ahead, she is due to give evidence to the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry. Preparing her is the law firm Mishcon de Reya, which once represented the late Diana, Princess of Wales.

You have to have serious money in order to afford Mishcon de Reya.

She attempted to have an impartial examination of the Horizon system but sacked the firm when she didn’t care much for what they had uncovered:

In 2012, after she was promoted to chief executive, she brought in forensic accountant firm, Second Sight, to conduct an independent inquiry into the Fujitsu software. Before agreeing, Second Sight’s managing director Ron Warmington had a face-to-face meeting with Ms Vennells and the Post Office’s £100,000-a-year chairman, Alice Perkins, wife of former Labour minister Jack Straw.

The Mail understands that after asking both women twice if they were really committed to finding the truth, they replied they were.

Mr Warmington told the Mail: ‘But as soon as we started discovering stuff, the howitzers were brought in and shells were being fired across at us. The Post Office tried to discredit us. Everything they did was underhand, unscrupulous, amateurish trickery.’

A source close to the audit admitted shock at the number of errors being made within the company.

‘I remember thinking they’d be better off making decisions with a dart board because they were getting everything wrong all the time,’ the source said.

‘They couldn’t even get post codes right on some outgoing letters. And there were thousands of documents which had misspelled Paula Vennells’ name.’

As for Ms Vennells herself, the source found her to be ‘dim’ and ‘over-promoted’ and ‘like dealing with a mosquito’.

‘If you’re going to take that top job with the bucks that go with it, you’d better be as sharp as a tack. And she wasn’t.’

Second Sight’s final report described the Horizon system as ‘not fit for purpose’ and warned of ‘potential miscarriages of justice and misconduct by prosecutors acting on behalf of the Post Office’.

But the Post Office insisted that there was ‘absolutely no evidence of any systematic issues with the computer system’.

Ms Vennells left the Post Office in 2019, months before a damning High Court judgment ruled that Horizon was not ‘remotely robust’ and had ‘bugs, errors and defects’.

This is what happened to Vennells after leaving the Post Office in 2019:

… as well as taking jobs as a non-executive director of Morrisons supermarket and retailer Dunelm – which brought in £140,000 a year – Ms Vennells was appointed as an adviser to the Cabinet Office, made a member of the Church of England ethical investments committee and became chairman of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, a paid post.

She was even being considered for the role of Bishop of London, one of the most high-ranking positions in the Church of England.

One of the most disturbing aspects of this story is how those in authority continued to promote her despite the very visible chaos left in her wake.

The Mail interviewed one person who said that attempting to block a Vennells appointment resulted in thinly-veiled threats of a career limiting nature:

An NHS whistleblower, retired consultant psychiatrist Dr Minh Alexander, told the Mail she wrote to the NHS Trust and Care Quality Commission in 2020 to question whether Ms Vennells was a ‘fit and proper person’ to become chairman in light of what had happened at the Post Office …

She was stunned to receive a lengthy ‘private’ email from former BBC Crimewatch presenter Nick Ross, who at the time was a non-executive board member at the trust, telling her: ‘I truly fear you may come to regret your attempts to have Paula Vennells sacked from her existing roles,’ and adding: ‘I worry that, for the best of intentions, you are pursuing a vendetta that may backfire on you.’

Good grief.

However, right prevailed in the end. In early 2021:

Two months after that December 2020 email exchange, Ms Vennells stood down. In April 2021, following the quashing of 39 sub-postmasters convictions, she resigned as an Anglican priest and from her Morrisons and Dunelm directorships. She also stepped down as governor of private Bedford School, where her two sons were educated.

I read elsewhere that she had to be told to resign her sacerdotal duties; she did not go voluntarily.

I know. You’re wondering about Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury. We’re nearly there.

On January 9, The Telegraph told us:

It also emerged that in 2017 she was considered for the role of Bishop of London.

On Monday, January 15, The Telegraph featured this story, ‘Justin Welby should quit for supporting Paula Vennells to be Bishop of London’:

Queen Elizabeth II’s former chaplain has called for the Archbishop of Canterbury to stand down amid suggestions he endorsed the disgraced former Post Office boss to be Bishop of London …

Last week it emerged Ms Vennells was shortlisted to become Bishop of London in 2017 – the third most senior role in the Church of England after the Archbishops of Canterbury and York – despite suggestions having emerged at the time that postmasters had been wrongly prosecuted.

Church sources claim the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby, was personally supportive of Ms Vennells’ candidacy at the time.

In the wake of the news, the late Queen’s former chaplain, the Rev Canon Jeremy Haselock, who is an associate priest at Great St Bartholomew’s in the City of London, criticised the Archbishop’s reported endorsement of Ms Vennells, saying: “Welby must go.”

The Revd Canon Haselock has a damning indictment of the Archbishop:

Writing on his personal Facebook account hours after the story broke, accompanied by a picture of the Archbishop and Ms Vennells, he said: “Surely this is the point at which Welby must go. Another demonstration of his complete lack of sound judgment.”

In the post, seen by The Telegraph, he added: “His backing for this woman for episcopal office shows how completely he fails to understand the nature of that office.

“His total failure to bring pastoral care to the fore during the pandemic and the disastrous decisions he made at that time shows his complete and utter lack of understanding of the Church and its ministry.

“His has been a terrible primacy and clutching his GCVO [Royal Victorian Order] he should go.”

Rev Canon Jeremy Haselock was appointed Chaplain to Her Majesty the Queen in 2013, a title which he held until 2021, ministering to the late monarch …

The article continues with more about the eventual nomination of the current Bishop of London:

The Daily Telegraph understands that alongside Ms Vennells, other names considered for the role were the Rt Rev Christopher Cocksworth, the former Bishop of Coventry who is now the Dean of Windsor, and Rt Rev Dr Graham Tomlin, the former Bishop of Kensington amd the current director of the Centre for Cultural Witness at Lambeth Palace.

Dame Sarah Mullally DBE was eventually appointed the 133rd Bishop of London in December 2017.

As for Vennells:

“I have heard that Welby pushed for her,” one [Church source] said. “Apparently the meeting of the Crown Nominations Committee in 2017 was quite fortuitous because Paula had no parish experience and was a self-supporting minister.

How on earth could he want to appoint a Bishop of London with no parish experience?

The paper quoted their source as saying:

Over the past 10 years the church has become more of a business model so the whole idea of Paula Vennells being the supposed favourite candidate of Justin Welby links to the whole businessification of the church under his reign.

Oh, dear.

A second Church source spoke to The Telegraph:

Another source said the Archbishop was known to be supportive of Ms Vennells, who sat on the church’s Ethical Investments Advisory Group.

“Justin was close to her,” they said. “He was always very supportive of her when she was a member of the Church of England ethical investment advisory committee.”

Not surprisingly:

Lambeth Palace declined to comment.

I realise that the Church of England encourages men and women with previous careers to seek ordination. Welby himself was a highly-paid Shell executive. On the face of it, there’s nothing wrong with that.

However, that does not excuse and should not encourage the wrong type of people being given preferment either for ordination or subsequent senior positions that they do not deserve.

I agree that Justin Welby should stand down as Archbishop of Canterbury, but who would succeed him?

It will be interesting to see if this story gathers pace in the coming weeks. More about the Post Office scandal emerges every day, and Paula Vennells’s fingerprints are on a significant portion of it.

Lessons from the Roman Empire

On January 2, 2024, the Daily Sceptic featured a post, ‘What Ancient Rome Can Teach Our Fearful Age’.

Guy de la Bédoyère recaps the four centuries after the birth of Christ in the empire. Most of us will know the main events that led to its downfall, including vice and corruption.

However, there are also other elements to explore.

Crime

Even in the decades following St Paul’s death, crime was a preoccupation with Romans. One of them was spiking with poisoned needles (emphases mine):

During the reign of Domitian (81-96) there had been an outbreak of a sinister new offence, not only in Rome but also elsewhere. The perpetrators’ modus operandi was to spread poison on needles and then prick anyone they could with them. This extraordinary story of the original spikers sounds like something from the Sherlock Holmes stories, but Rome had no celebrated sleuth, fictional or otherwise, to solve the crimes. The result was that many victims died, most of them unaware of what had happened to them.

Some of the needle killers were informed on, caught and punished. The mystery is what the motive was. The historian Dio, who recorded the outbreak, suggests it was some sort of crooked business, but there is no suggestion that the murderers were after money. The wave may have been driven by nothing more than a malicious desire to spread panic. If so, it succeeded.

There was already a lot of crime in Rome by then that made the capital sound like an early version of New York City. The poet Juvenal wrote:

When your house is closed, and your shop locked up with bar and chain, and everything is quiet you’ll be robbed by a burglar, or perhaps a cut-throat will wipe you out quickly with his blade.

Oddly enough, the upper classes comprised the greatest number of brigands:

Lethal violence could erupt without warning, to say nothing of the Roman habit of hurling broken pots out of the window. Oddly, the available evidence suggests that much the most dangerous cutthroats were often young men from aristocratic families.

Juvenal said that there were so many such hazards in Rome that anyone who went out to dinner without making a will first was guilty of sheer negligence. The poet Horace mentioned how easy it was to be taken for a fool by a beggar loitering at any one of Rome’s numerous road junctions pretending to be lame.

Weather

Weather also created a climate of panic:

Pliny the Younger, wrote to a friend after experiencing a terrible storm. “Here [in Rome] we have incessant gales and repeated floods. The Tiber had burst its banks and wrecked homes and many people injured and killed.”

Pliny the Younger finished up, “When disaster is actual or expected, the effect is much the same, except that suffering has its limits but apprehension has none. Suffering is confined to the known event, but apprehension extends to every possibility.”

Here is the lesson for us:

He couldn’t have described the fear and despair promoted at every opportunity in our own time better. The only difference is that now it’s turned into an industry.

Migration

However, what the article did not explore were the reasons for the Western Roman Empire’s decline in the fifth century.

History tells us that Rome depended increasingly on foreign imports into its military, men who did not necessarily share Roman values:

For most of its history, Rome’s military was the envy of the ancient world. But during the decline, the makeup of the once mighty legions began to change. Unable to recruit enough soldiers from the Roman citizenry, emperors like Diocletian and Constantine began hiring foreign mercenaries to prop up their armies. The ranks of the legions eventually swelled with Germanic Goths and other barbarians, so much so that Romans began using the Latin word “barbarus” in place of “soldier.”

While these Germanic soldiers of fortune proved to be fierce warriors, they also had little or no loyalty to the empire, and their power-hungry officers often turned against their Roman employers. In fact, many of the barbarians who sacked the city of Rome and brought down the Western Empire had earned their military stripes while serving in the Roman legions.

This is how it happened:

The Barbarian attacks on Rome partially stemmed from a mass migration caused by the Huns’ invasion of Europe in the late fourth century. When these Eurasian warriors rampaged through northern Europe, they drove many Germanic tribes to the borders of the Roman Empire. The Romans grudgingly allowed members of the Visigoth tribe to cross south of the Danube and into the safety of Roman territory, but they treated them with extreme cruelty.

According to the historian Ammianus Marcellinus, Roman officials even forced the starving Goths to trade their children into slavery in exchange for dog meat. In brutalizing the Goths, the Romans created a dangerous enemy within their own borders. When the oppression became too much to bear, the Goths rose up in revolt and eventually routed a Roman army and killed the Eastern Emperor Valens during the Battle of Adrianople in A.D. 378. The shocked Romans negotiated a flimsy peace with the barbarians, but the truce unraveled in 410, when the Goth King Alaric moved west and sacked Rome. With the Western Empire weakened, Germanic tribes like the Vandals and the Saxons were able to surge across its borders and occupy Britain, Spain and North Africa.

A Free Library review of Oxford historian Peter Heather’s The Fall of the Roman Empire provides more detail, which also involves food security. While crops failed in what we know of as today’s Italy, further-flung areas of the empire saw much better crop production. The hordes eventually took advantage of this situation:

Some historians have argued … that this was actually a time when agriculture in important areas of the empire, especially in Italy, was failing. To make this claim they point to the fact that tremendous amounts of agricultural produce were brought to Rome from the empire’s North African provinces, rather than grown locally. Moreover, it is historical orthodoxy to hold that the later empire overtaxed its land-owning class, causing a flight from the land that resulted in the infamous Agri Deserti, the phenomenon of the “deserted lands.”

This phenomenon no doubt did occur in some areas. Ancient texts make reference to it, and historians were quick, too quick it seems, to assume this applied to the empire as a whole. Heather cites archaeological evidence to the contrary. Some areas, he points out, experienced rapid and intense agricultural and rural growth. In Roman North Africa, Greece, the Near East and elsewhere, agriculture flourished. In these areas, Heather writes, “the fourth and fifth centuries have emerged as a period of maximum rural development–not minimum, as the orthodoxy would have led us to expect.”

The economy of the Roman Empire was grounded in agriculture; the power of the state, militarily, reflected this economy. If the agricultural sector was strong, the state’s coffers would be full, and the military, largely the only full-scale service provided by the Roman State, would be correspondingly strong. In fact, the military of the Roman Empire in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, just when it was supposedly on the decline according to orthodox historical interpretation, was in reality near its zenith.

It is worth noting that:

at the beginning of the fourth century, at the end of the reign of the Emperor Diocletian, the Romans could field an army of at least 300,000 men. Moreover, this was a well-trained army that could fight a two-front war, and it did so not long after, against the Goths in the West and the Persians in the East.

When the Goths arrived at Rome, although they were mistreated, the Romans needed the manpower:

In a sense, their timing was perfect. The Romans were deeply embroiled in the East with a resurgent Persian empire. The Balkans were, therefore, a bit short on manpower. Under the circumstances, the Emperor Valens was forced to admit the Gothic horde.

However, food security caused an internal war:

All went well until food supplies ran short and tempers flared. There was an attack on the emperor at a banquet and soon there was war, which raged for six years.

From the time of this conflict, known as the Gothic War, until the fall of the Roman Empire, continuous pressure from the Huns would force other barbarians to move en masse across the Western Empire. Throughout the book, Heather examines the empire’s continuing attempts to repel or at least contain the onslaught. More often than not, they were successful in battle, but each success (and sometimes spectacular failure) sapped the strength of the giant. Soon Gaul was overrun, and Spain, too.

Eventually, the hordes invaded North Africa, the empire’s breadbasket:

The real blow came when Goths and Vandals crossed into North Africa and took over the Roman provinces there. Loss of these provinces would mean loss of the West, and the combined forces of all the empire were sent to recover the area. Just before making landfall near Carthage, the Roman fleet was trapped and destroyed by a Vandal fleet.

Conclusions

The Free Library‘s review comes to these conclusions from Peter Heather’s book:

There are two major lessons to be learned from the fall of the Roman Empire in the West, and these are made apparent in Heather’s book. First and foremost is the danger of uncontrolled hostile immigration. That the empire could absorb large groups of immigrants is beyond doubt. It could and did do so over several centuries. But even the Roman Empire, with its vast territory and unprecedented wealth, had a limit to the number of people it could absorb and Romanize.

Eventually, the immigrants grew more powerful than the existing Roman authority and, maintaining to some degree their independence of spirit and character, were unwilling to relinquish their own culture and adopt the Roman. Vast blocs of once-Roman territory eventually became foreign and even the preexisting Roman population, eventually outnumbered, had to make peace with the newcomers.

As for Christianity being to blame, as Edward Gibbon wrote in the 18th century:

it has been the norm to see in the fall of the empire the supposedly pernicious role of the new Christian religion. Heather’s book, taken as a whole, is a marvelous corrective for this mistaken position. There can be no doubt, after reading Heather, that the West, at the height of its power, succumbed to successive waves of hostile immigrants.

Heather also makes the point that if Christianity were to blame, then the empire in the East, based at Constantinople, should not have continued for almost a millennium after the fall of the West. After all, the Eastern Empire was just as Christian as the West, and was even closer to the scene of the many early doctrinal controversies. And yet the sun did not set on the Eastern Empire of the Romans until 1453.

Lessons for us

We are seeing parallels to empathetic immigration in all Western countries, including Australia, as Patrick Christys featured on his GB News programme on Thursday, January 5:

Christys’s intro is about the Archbishop of Canterbury, who has just come into an inheritance of £2.4m from his late mother’s estate. As Britons know, Archbishop Welby wants compassion to be extended to all coming across the Channel in small boats. Christys suggests that Welby use his inheritance to personally house these economic migrants, known for tossing their papers and mobile phones overboard into the Channel before arriving on our shores.

At the 20:00 point, Christys interviews The Spectator Australia‘s Alexandra Marshall who wonders why immigrants are occupying such a large swathe of the nation’s cities and nearby suburbs while indigenous Australians have been pushed out to the exurbs in the past decade. Alexandra Marshall knows, because she lives in a nearby suburb of Sydney in a largely immigrant neighbourhood. An associate professor at the University of Queensland, Dr Dorina Pojani, said that it was because of the pandemic. Marshall counters that she herself had been living in that neighbourhood for several years before the pandemic and saw it change. She also does not think that Australians who have lived all their lives near Sydney should be priced out of the housing market.

Pojani brushed away Marshall’s experience in a rather dismissive tone. It should be noted that Dr Pojani is Albanian and, interestingly enough, lectures on Urban Planning.

Hmm.

Food for thought.

King Charles III’s coronation exceeds expectations — part 2

Yesterday’s post was my first instalment about King Charles III’s coronation, which can be viewed in full at GB News.

This video begins at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, May 6, and continues through the flypast, ending around 2:30 p.m.:

Order of Service (cont’d)

Using The Telegraph‘s Order of Service, I left off just after the anointing of the King.

As we will see, he paid homage to his parents with certain aspects of the ceremony:

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip given ‘subtle tributes’ at King Charles’ Coronation https://t.co/vTcf72nwox

— GB News (@GBNEWS) May 6, 2023

Before I proceed — and ignore the caption — here is a splendid picture of the King and Queen before being crowned:

https://twitter.com/JudithS00481680/status/1654864341492023298

The King’s Investiture and the Crowning

The next part involved King Charles being presented with various symbols of office.

In memory of the late Prince Philip, who was brought up in the Orthodox Church, the Byzantine Chant Ensemble sang to the King:

Give the king your judgements, O God, and your righteousness to the son of a king. Then shall he judge your people righteously and your poor with justice. Alleluia. 

May he defend the poor among the people, deliver the children of the needy and crush the oppressor. Alleluia. 

May he live as long as the sun and moon endure, from one generation to another. Alleluia. 

In his time shall righteousness flourish, and abundance of peace till the moon shall be no more. Alleluia. 

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and shall be for ever. Amen. 

O Lord, save the king and answer us when we call upon you. 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. Glory to you, our God, glory to you. 

As the Lord President of the Privy Council, Conservative MP Penny Mordaunt exchanged the heavy Sword of State for the Jewelled Sword of Offering, and placed it in the King’s right hand:

King Charles III is presented with the Jewelled Sword, while The Archbishop of Canterbury tells him to use it to 'do justice, stop the growth of iniquity, protect the holy Church of God and all people of goodwill'.

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— GB News (@GBNEWS) May 6, 2023

The Archbishop of Canterbury said (emphases mine):

HEAR our prayers, O Lord, we beseech thee, and so direct and support thy servant King Charles, that he may not bear the Sword in vain; but may use it as the minister of God to resist evil and defend the good, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

RECEIVE this kingly Sword: may it be to you and to all who witness these things, a sign and symbol not of judgement, but of justice; not of might, but of mercy.

The King rose, the sword was fastened around his girdle (belt), and he sat down while the Archbishop said:

WITH this sword do justice, stop the growth of iniquity, protect the holy Church of God and all people of goodwill, help and defend widows and orphans, restore the things that are gone to decay, maintain the things that are restored, punish and reform what is amiss, and confirm what is in good order: that doing these things you may be glorious in all virtue; and so faithfully serve our Lord Jesus Christ in this life, that you may reign for ever with him in the life which is to come. Amen.

The King stood. The sword was lifted towards the altar, where the Dean received it. The King returned to the ancient Coronation Chair, which has been in use for centuries. Penny Mordaunt ‘redeemed’ the sword with a blue velvet bag holding a gold coin. The sword was duly returned to her.

Note how Mordaunt stands legs apart in the video. She has to, because those swords are heavy.

Such is the state of our society today — we are fast approaching Idiocracy — that people now think she should be Prime Minister. Even The Guardian reported:

The images of a solemn-faced Mordaunt carrying the 3.6kg jewelled sword for 51 minutes, while dressed in a spectacular teal dress and cape, generated interest in everything from her training regime to the designer who made her outfit. It also prompted a sudden drop in the odds for her to become the next leader of her party.

Even her opponents expressed admiration, with Emily Thornberry, the shadow attorney general, tweeting: “Got to say it, Penny Mordaunt looks damn fine! The sword-bearer steals the show.”

The Guardian had another article about her physical prowess, with a reporter trying out carrying a full water jug — ‘the jug of state’ — by way of comparison:

When I struggled to lift the full jug out from under the tap, I realised this was going to be harder than I thought.

Mordaunt said she had been “doing some press-ups” and training with a weighted replica as preparation for carrying the sword …

Less than 30 seconds in, it became clear how wrong I was. My arm tremors were already rippling the surface of the jug, making it look like the cups in Jurassic Park when the T rex was incoming …

At 8 minutes and 42 seconds in, as the arm judders reached their peak, I succumbed to the inevitable and let go of my jug of state, soaking my feet in the process. The jug did not survive the experiment, making me grateful it was not a priceless artefact handmade for Charles II.

Mordaunt was given the role of lord president of the privy council as a demotion by Liz Truss after losing out in the leadership race, but in less than an hour of sword-wielding, she has used it to pull off a PR coup.

Enough weight lifting. Back to the coronation now.

Life peers presented the following items. Why the King did not choose hereditary peers for this, I do not understand.

Lord Kamall (Conservative) brought the Armills — two ancient gold bracelets. The King touched them and the Archbishop said:

RECEIVE the Bracelets of sincerity and wisdom, tokens of the Lord’s protection embracing you on every side.

Baroness Merron (Labour) brought the King the Robe Royal, in which he had to be invested in order to be crowned. The Telegraph‘s article on the coronation garments and says of this particular one, also known as Imperial Mantle or the Pallium Regale:

Made for the coronation of George IV in 1821, the robe royal’s design was based on a priestly robe.

The gold mantle, woven in coloured threads, features a pattern of foliage, crowns, fleurs-de-lis and eagles, with coloured roses, thistles and shamrock. The gold clasp is cast in the form of an eagle.

It is the oldest robe among these garments.

The King would already have been wearing the Colobium Sindonis, which is a white tunic for the anointing. It is white to symbolise purity before God.

Over that went the Supertunica made of gold silk and brocade, which is magnificent to behold. It is on display at the Tower of London:

The full-length, sleeved coat of gold silk was made for the coronation of King George V in 1911 and was worn by King George VI in May 1937 and the late Queen in 1953.

It is placed over the Colobium sindonis for the investiture.

Both garments are removed before the procession out of the Abbey.

The Supertunica is inspired by the vestments of the early Church and the Byzantine Empire and is adorned with the national symbols of the home nations.

The Supertunica is worn under the Imperial Mantle. Both garments are in the Royal Collection and are on public display at the Tower of London.

The belt that goes with the Supertunica is called the Girdle.

The Prince of Wales then presented the Stole Royal, which is a thin strip of gold and embroidered fabric that goes over the Supertunica.

Those garments were put on the King, Stole Royal then the Robe Royal.

The Archbishop said:

RECEIVE this Robe: may the Lord clothe you with the robe of righteousness, and with the garments of salvation.

The Anglican Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland and Metropolitan presented the Orb, which was banded with a cross on top, signifying Christ’s reign over the world. The Archbishop said:

RECEIVE this Orb, set under the Cross, and remember always that the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdom of our God, and of his Christ.

The King touched the Orb, then it was returned to the altar.

Lord Patel brought the Ring to the King, who touched it. Normally, the monarch would wear it at least for the duration of the ceremony.

The Arbishop said:

RECEIVE this Ring, symbol of kingly dignity and a sign of the covenant sworn this day, between God and King, King and people.

It seems Charles has felt self-conscious about the size of his fingers, which has led to speculation about his health:

King Charles's swollen hands: How nightmare health condition Dactylitis might cause monarch's 'sausage fingers' https://t.co/sPXRDnnILM

— GB News (@GBNEWS) May 6, 2023

According to research that GB News compiled, even the Royal Family noticed his fingers:

Prince William reportedly said he wished his “sausage fingers” father would stop writing so many letters so he could spend more time with his grandchildren.

Queen Elizabeth II also commented on her eldest son’s hands.

The late monarch supposedly wrote a letter to her music teacher after his birth in 1948.

It said: “They are rather large, but with fine long fingers quite unlike mine and certainly unlike his father’s.

“It will be interesting to see what they become.”

Howard Hodgson’s book The Man Who Will Be King claimed King Charles even said: “He [Prince William] really does look surprisingly appetising and has sausage fingers just like mine.”

The monarch also used the phrase himself when he was the Prince of Wales after a long haul flight to Australia in 2012 …

Temporary fluid retention, a sudden change in temperature, high blood pressure and arthritis could all explain his puffier hands.

It is not known what causes Charles’ “sausage fingers” but the symptom is also linked to the secondary disease of Dactylitis.

Dactylitis can be caused by a number of conditions and infections, including psoriatic arthritis.

Dactylitis is the medical term for severe swelling that affects your fingers or toes.

The word derives from the Greek word dactylos meaning finger.

It is an inflammatory disease. But I digress.

Lord Singh of Wimbledon brought the Glove, which the King put on his right hand.

The Archbishop said:

RECEIVE this Glove, that you may hold authority with gentleness and grace; trusting not in your own power but in the mercy of God.

Then came the two sceptres, the Sceptre with Cross and the Sceptre with Dove, presented by the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church and the Archbishop of Wales.

The Archbishop placed one sceptre in the King’s right hand and the other in his left, saying:

RECEIVE the Royal Sceptre, the ensign of kingly power and justice; and the Rod of equity and mercy, a symbol of covenant and peace. May the Spirit of the Lord who anointed Jesus at his baptism, so anoint you this day, that you might exercise authority with wisdom, and direct your counsels with grace; that by your service and ministry to all your people, justice and mercy may be seen in all the earth.

Then came the literal crowning moment.

Everyone stood but the King remained seated so that the Archbishop could place the crown on his head. Before doing so, the Archbishop prayed:

KING of kings and Lord of lords, bless, we beseech thee, this Crown, and so sanctify thy servant Charles, upon whose head this day thou dost place it for a sign of royal majesty, that he may be crowned with thy gracious favour and filled with abundant grace and all princely virtues; through him who liveth and reigneth supreme over all things, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Archbishop placed the crown on the King’s head. It looked as if he were screwing it on. I felt sorry for both of them:

King Charles III has formally been crowned at Westminster Abbey in London.

🖥 GB News on YouTube https://t.co/Wa58gYGZwF pic.twitter.com/rZ45qts7kA

— GB News (@GBNEWS) May 6, 2023

After doing so, he said:

God save The King.

The congregation responded likewise with the same proclamation.

While the Coronation Brass Ensemble played a fanfare, bells rang from the Abbey, the signal for the military gun salutes in Horseguards Parade and at the Tower of London. The signal was duly relayed to other parts of the United Kingdom as well as Gibraltar, Bermuda and ships at sea, where gun salutes also took place:

His Majesty the King! Charles officially crowned at Westminster Abbey in historic momenthttps://t.co/bP6P8GLPoQ

— GB News (@GBNEWS) May 6, 2023

At this point, the other Christian clergy offered their individual blessings to the King. This was a new insertion, as non-Anglican and non-Presbyterian Christian clergy were not allowed to participate in previous coronations since the establishment of the Church of England.

The choir sang during thist ime.

The Enthroning and the Homage

In this part, the Archbishop and the Prince of Wales pledged their loyalty to the King.

Normally, the hereditary peers would have joined the Prince of Wales, but Charles chose to leave them out. It probably would have been awkward if he had included them, because the obvious question would have been why Princes Harry and Andrew did not pledge their liege to him.

It began with the Archbishop who initially stood to say:

STAND firm, and hold fast from henceforth this seat of royal dignity, which is yours by the authority of Almighty God. May that same God, whose throne endures for ever, establish your throne in righteousness, that it may stand fast for evermore.

He then knelt before the King:

I, Justin, Archbishop of Canterbury, will be faithful and true, and faith and truth I will bear unto you, our Sovereign Lord, Defender of the Faith; and unto your heirs and successors according to law. So help me God.

The Prince of Wales followed the Archbishop, kneeling:

I, William, Prince of Wales, pledge my loyalty to you, and faith and truth I will bear unto you, as your liege man of life and limb. So help me God.

That was a really moving part of the service, seeing father and son look into each other’s eyes afterwards:

Prince William pledges his loyalty to his father, paying homage by kneeling before the new King.

🖥 GB News on YouTube https://t.co/Wa58gYHxmd pic.twitter.com/XsXg3PBMCS

— GB News (@GBNEWS) May 6, 2023

Then the Archbishop, in yet another first, opened the oath up to audience participation, as it were:

I now invite those who wish to offer their support to do so, with a moment of private reflection, by joining in saying ‘God save King Charles’ at the end, or, for those with the words before them, to recite them in full.

Anyone present — or at home or wherever they were watching — could say:

I swear that I will pay true allegiance to Your Majesty, and to your heirs and successors according to law. So help me God.

That part was rather controversial. Some people thought it was a great move, while others thought it presumptuous:

No. I take the David Starkey line, that's not a good addition that the CofE made to the ceremony. Long live the King and God save the King for sure, but the oaths are for the King and his Peers of the Realm.
The CofE adding that was the REAL cringe!

— (((òigridhpasta))) (@youthpasta) May 6, 2023

Historian Dr David Starkey, commentating for GB News, was deeply unhappy:

The act itself was not met with a “roar”, according to royal historian Dr David Starkey, who says the muted reaction exposes a sign of poor judgment from the monarchy.

Speaking on GB News, Starkey told royal correspondent Cameron Walker that King Charles did not receive the adulation he would have wanted during the act …

“In England, ordinary people don’t do pledges of allegiance. The old aristocracy would have been totally happy, because that is what they did.

“It is the problem when you decide to put tradition in a waste paper basket” …

Lambeth Palace confirmed it had been mutually agreed with Buckingham Palace that the introductory words would be changed.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, was to say: “I call upon all persons of goodwill in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and of the other realms and the territories to make their homage, in heart and voice, to their undoubted King, defender of all.”

All those who wished the pledge their allegiance were invited to reply: “I swear that I will pay true allegiance to your majesty, and to your heirs and successors according to law. So help me God.”

That said:

Starkey went on to praise the ceremony, describing it as an “absolutely traditional” occasion, and the late Queen Elizabeth II’s fingerprints were all over it.

“We had extraordinary references to the late Queen”, he said. “Her words framed everything. The notion of service and what she said about the function of the Church of England.

“She even framed the Coronation oath and its Protestantism.”

Another fanfare sounded and the Archbishop said:

God save The King.

The congregation responded:

God save King Charles. Long live King Charles. May The King live for ever.

That part concluded. It represented the unwritten contract between the King and his people.

The Coronation of the Queen

Although it was not broadcast on television, the Queen Consort was anointed in the open with the same holy oil used for the King.

This was another first.

On April 29, The Telegraph reported:

It is thought to be the first time a consort has been anointed in public view.

By contrast, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother was anointed under a canopy in 1937.

When the Archbishop anointed Camilla, he said:

Be your head anointed with holy oil.

ALMIGHTY God, the fountain of all goodness; hear our prayer this day for thy servant Camilla, whom in thy name, and with all devotion, we consecrate our Queen; make her strong in faith and love, defend her on every side, and guide her in truth and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

The Keeper of the Jewel House brought forth the Queen’s Ring. For whatever reason, Camilla touched only the velvet mount on which it was sitting.

The Archbishop said:

RECEIVE this Ring, a symbol of royal dignity and a sign of the covenant sworn this day.

The Crown was brought from the altar. The Archbishop placed it on her head, again having a bit of a time with the heavy crown, which was Queen Mary’s, George V’s wife. Camilla said something about adjusting it, so he did:

Queen Camilla! Symbolic moment nervous-looking royal is crowned at Coronationhttps://t.co/Kh0CAbPTJx

— GB News (@GBNEWS) May 6, 2023

He said:

MAY thy servant Camilla, who wears this crown, be filled by thine abundant grace and with all princely virtues; reign in her heart, O King of love, that, being certain of thy protection, she may be crowned with thy gracious favour; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Afterwards, the new Queen adjusted her fringe underneath the crown which proved a bit trying.

She received the Sceptre and Rod from the former Bishop of London, the Right Revd Richard Chartres, and the Bishop of Dover, the Right Revd Rose Wilkin, formerly the Chaplain to the House of Commons:

The Archbishop said:

RECEIVE the Royal Sceptre. Receive the Rod of equity and mercy. May the Spirit guide you in wisdom and grace, that, by your service and ministry, justice and mercy may be seen in all the earth.

With that, the Queen was enthroned. In accordance with the King’s wishes, she is no longer officially known as the Queen Consort but the Queen:

Queen Consort Camilla is anointed and crowned with Queen Mary's Crown. She will now be formally known at Queen Camilla.

🖥 GB News on YouTube https://t.co/Wa58gYGZwF pic.twitter.com/GRJtGKK3Ik

— GB News (@GBNEWS) May 6, 2023

A new piece of music played. It sounded dignified but had shades of a show tune here and there. It turns out that the King had commissioned Andrew Lloyd Webber, present in the congregation, to write a song for the coronation.

The lyrics are based on Psalm 98:

MAKE a joyful noise unto the Lord for he hath done marvellous things. And his holy arm hath gotten him the victory. He hath remembered his mercy and his truth toward the house of Israel; all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. O make a joyful noise unto the Lord all the earth. Make a loud noise; rejoice and sing his praise. Let the sea roar, the world and they that dwell within. Let the floods clap their hands; let the hills be joyful together. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord all the earth. Rejoice and sing his praise. For he cometh to judge the earth. And with righteousness shall he judge the world and the people with equity. O make a joyful noise unto the Lord all the earth. Sing unto the Lord with the harp and the voice of a psalm. With trumpets and sound of cornet make a joyful noise before the Lord the King.

Holy Communion

During the Andrew Lloyd Webber melody, the King and Queen went to the vestry or another private room to divest themselves of their outer coronation garments and crowns then returned to the area near the altar.

Using the 1662 liturgy from the Book of Common Prayer, the Archbishop then consecrated bread and wine for the King and Queen. Holy Communion must be given to the monarch and his spouse during a coronation ceremony.

While they received Communion, the choir sang a new arrangement for the Agnus Dei. This was also specially commissioned for the coronation and was written by Tarik O’Regan, born in 1978.

Benediction

After Communion came the final blessing, the benediction.

The congregation sang Praise my soul, the King of heaven:

PRAISE, my soul, the King of heaven; to his feet thy tribute bring. Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven, who like me his praise should sing? Praise him! Praise him! Praise the everlasting King.

Praise him for his grace and favour to our fathers in distress; praise him still the same for ever, slow to chide, and swift to bless. Praise him! Praise him! glorious in his faithfulness.

Father-like, he tends and spares us; well our feeble frame he knows; in his hands he gently bears us, rescues us from all our foes. Praise him! Praise him! widely as his mercy flows.

Angels, help us to adore him; ye behold him face to face; sun and moon, bow down before him; dwellers all in time and space. Praise him! Praise him! Praise with us the God of grace.

The King and Queen returned to whatever private rooms they were in to put on their ceremonial Robes of Estate, neither of which is new.

The Telegraph tells us:

In keeping with tradition, Charles and Camilla will each wear two different robes – a crimson Robe of State on arrival and a purple Robe of Estate at the end of the service.

The King will wear his grandfather George VI’s Robes of State and Estate from the 1937 Coronation, which are almost 90 years old and have been conserved and prepared for the occasion.

Embroiderers from the Royal School of Needlework have been working on the crimson velvet, with robemakers Ede & Ravenscroft working on the lining and gold lace.

The Queen will wear her late mother-in-law’s crimson Robe of State, which was made for her 1953 Coronation. The robe has been conserved with adjustments and has a train of 5.5m. The original brief was for a “hand-made velvet robe, trimmed with best-quality Canadian ermine and gold lace”.

The robe is also known as the Parliament Robe as it is worn for the State Opening of Parliament.

It took a long time for the King and Queen to re-emerge for their lengthy procession from the Abbey back to Buckingham Palace. As such, more music played.

Finally, a fanfare sounded and they appeared. Everyone sang the National Anthem. Penny Mordaunt was in front, carrying the sword. Prince George is the last page in the back on our left, on the King’s right hand side:

"God save our gracious King," sings the congregation as King Charles III leaves Westminster Abbey with Queen Camilla.

📺 Freeview 236, Sky 512, Virgin 604
🖥 GB News on YouTube https://t.co/Wa58gYHxmd pic.twitter.com/4S2Pj2BJYX

— GB News (@GBNEWS) May 6, 2023

Procession of the King and Queen

A long recessional procession took place, which included members of the Royal Family who had been sitting in the pews.

When the King reached the entrance to the Abbey, he paused to receive greetings from the leaders of non-Christian faiths. They said in unison:

YOUR Majesty, as neighbours in faith, we acknowledge the value of public service. We unite with people of all faiths and beliefs in thanksgiving, and in service with you for the common good.

The King then paused for greetings from Governors-General of the Commonwealth.

It was 1 p.m.

The Abbey’s bells pealed beautifully and continued for at least another hour, possibly longer.

Ready to climb into the Gold State Coach, the King handed his sceptre to an aide and got ready for the procession back to Buckingham Palace. The aide carefully mounted the orb in the coach between him and Queen Camilla once they were seated.

The newly crowned couple were on their way to a new phase of their lives together:

The bells of Westminster Abbey ring as King Charles III and Queen Camilla enter the Gold State Coach to begin their journey back to Buckingham Palace.

🖥 GB News on YouTube https://t.co/Wa58gYHxmd pic.twitter.com/Cxy6W0PA4V

— GB News (@GBNEWS) May 6, 2023

More tomorrow soon on the après-coronation, including what happened outside the Abbey, the procession back to Buckingham Palace, the balcony appearance and the flypast.

King Charles III’s coronation exceeds expectations — part 1

Thankfully, I was wrong.

King Charles III’s coronation on Saturday, May 6, 2023, was much better than I had anticipated last Friday.

The state of the UK today

It is important to note the backdrop against which the coronation took place.

We have a Hindu Prime Minister (Rishi Sunak), a Muslim Mayor of London (Sadiq Khan), a Muslim First Minister of Scotland (Humza Yousaf), a Buddhist Home Secretary (Suella Braverman) and a Chancellor (Jeremy Hunt) with a Chinese wife.

This was not the Britain of June 4, 1953, the date of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation.

The coronation emblem

The coronation emblem recognised the plant symbols of the four nations: England, Wales, Scotland — which comprise Great Britain — and Northern Ireland:

The wonderful Coronation emblem features the rose of 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿, the thistle of 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿, the daffodil of 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 and the ☘️ of Northern Ireland in tribute to His Majesty’s love of the natural world.

Planning is shaping up well for the Coronation to be a special weekend. https://t.co/qYQRDFapdA

— Oliver Dowden (@OliverDowden) February 11, 2023

Coronation video

Here is GB News’s video of the day’s events, from 10:00 a.m. to the flypast mid-afternoon:

Religious ceremony

Most Britons were not alive when the last coronation took place and might have been unaware how religious it is.

As historian Dr David Starkey explained on GB News on April 15, the ceremony is a Christian one:

It involves a covenant between God and the monarch, which is why the King and those before him, are anointed outside of public view.

The Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury presides over the service and, in accordance with tradition, the Presbyterian Moderator of the Church of Scotland presented the monarch with a new Bible. Charles received a gilt-edged edition of the King James Version bound in red leather.

In a first, after his anointing by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the King received blessings from other Christian prelates, as The Telegraph reported on April 30:

They will have their own ecumenical procession and then, after the King is crowned, there will be a series of blessings, bookended by the two Anglican primates, the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. Four others – the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Thyateira & Great Britain, Nikitas Loulias, plus the Moderator of the Free Churches and the General Secretary of Churches Together in England will between them utter about 90 words amid the thousands upon thousands uttered by Anglican clerics.

In a nod to other world faiths, the King received greetings from their leaders in Britain as he exited Westminster Abbey at the end of the ceremony:

Canon law of the Church of England, which prohibits other faiths saying prayers, has been adhered to.

Rishi Sunak read the Epistle very well, looking at the text only occasionally (emphases mine below):

The most notable involvement of a non-Christian is the Hindu Rishi Sunak, reading the Epistle, but he takes his place by reason of his office: it has become traditional for the Prime Minister to read a lesson at a Church-meets-state-meets-Crown occasion, as Liz Truss did at the late Queen’s funeral.

Here’s the video:

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak makes an appearance at the King's Coronation, reading from the Epistle to the Colossians, from the New Testament.

🖥 GB News on YouTube https://t.co/Wa58gYHxmd pic.twitter.com/kuysByVKAL

— GB News (@GBNEWS) May 6, 2023

The Times said that the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Right Revd Justin Welby, chose the reading from St Paul to the Colossians for its emphasis on the rule of Christ and the joy we find in it:

Selected by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Epistle to the Colossians proclaims the loving rule of Christ over all people and all things and takes its name from the Christian community in Colossae (now a part of Turkey).

Colossae was one of the first churches to be established after the resurrection of Jesus. Sunak was asked to read to reflect modern customs of leaders of countries speaking at state events.

… “That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness.”

The reading tied in well with the King’s specially composed prayer that preceded it:

God of compassion and mercy

whose Son was sent not to be served but to serve,

give grace that I may find in thy service perfect freedom and in that freedom knowledge of thy truth.

Grant that I may be a blessing to all thy children, of every faith and conviction, that together we may discover the ways of gentleness

and be led into the paths of peace.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

The theme of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s sermon focused on service, acknowleging the 400 charity workers who were watching on livestream in the Church of St Margaret next to Westminster Abbey.

I will return to the service itself later in the post.

Another rainy Coronation Day

The weather was only slightly warmer than it was when Queen Elizabeth II was crowned.

However, it was rainy on both days:

'It was a day exactly like this, except it was wetter, it was colder and it was perpetually windy.'

Royal Historian David Starkey reminisces on Queen Elizabeth II's Coronation in 1953. pic.twitter.com/s08UyDNhiH

— GB News (@GBNEWS) May 6, 2023

In fact, rain has been a feature of the last several coronations.

My late mother believed that rain meant good luck. It rained on my wedding day. Here I am over 30 years later, still married. The rain was a blessing. May it be so for Charles III as it was for his mother.

High security

Security was at its highest on Coronation Day.

Only days before, the House of Commons passed new laws enabling police with greater powers of arrest. To their credit, London’s Metropolitan Police used them in pre-empting possible violence.

On Tuesday evening, May 2, GB News broadcast some programmes in a small studio adjacent to Buckingham Palace. Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg’s programme was interrupted by a small controlled explosion that evening while he was talking with the former BBC Royal reporter Michael Cole:

Guido Fawkes explained (red emphasis his):

… the entire crew were forced to evacuate their perch outside Buckingham Palace while police used controlled explosives on suspicious objects – now thought to be shotgun cartridges – thrown over the Palace gates. The detonation can be heard live on-air as Mogg speaks. “I think that was probably a controlled explosion in the background…”

Rees-Mogg and Cole were remarkably composed throughout.

Dan Wootton, who had arrived at the channel’s Paddington studios early, took over from there.

The procession to Westminster Abbey

Charles and Camilla’s procession from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey was shorter than his mother’s was. The Government, who largely directed the coronation as the taxpayer footed the bill, decided that a shorter route would cost less money with regard to security:

King Charles and Queen Camilla have left Buckingham Palace in a carriage procession on their way to Westminster Abbey.

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— GB News (@GBNEWS) May 6, 2023

The Duke of Norfolk as Earl Marshal planned the sequence of events, working with the military and clergy as required.

His ancestor, who presided over the late Queen’s coronation, did a flawless job. The Dukes of Norfolk, whilst Catholic, have planned Royal state events for generations.

Two glitches

However, there are some things even the current Duke could not control.

Charles and Camilla, riding in the Diamond Jubilee Coach — designed by Rolls Royce, incidentally — arrived at the Abbey five minutes early.

The King had one of his moments, visible in this video:

King Charles and Queen Camilla arrive at Westminster Abbey for their Coronation.

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— GB News (@GBNEWS) May 6, 2023

The carriage doors remained closed for several minutes.

We later discovered that the Prince and Princess of Wales and their two children — Prince George was already at the Abbey as a page — were running late. Somehow, they seamlessly appeared inside the Abbey. This is the magic of planning and part of the genius of the Dukes of Norfolk who have planned these events for generations.

That said, as the King and Queen Consort had arrived early, their carriage doors remained closed until the appointed moment.

Then Camilla’s attendants and pages had some difficulty holding up her robe and the train on her dress, something that did not happen at Queen Elizabeth’s coronation:

The King and Queen Camilla descend from the Gold State Coach as they make their way into Westminster Abbey for the Coronation.

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— GB News (@GBNEWS) May 6, 2023

Guests’ arrival

The doors to Westminster Abbey opened early, as is customary for Royal occasions.

The Royal couple expected 2200 guests. The Duke of Norfolk would have assigned arrival times to each group. The first group had to arrive at 7:30 a.m. All guests were expected to stay seated as the other groups continued to arrive.

For the first time, the King invited Royal families from around the world. This did not happen previously because other monarchs considered the coronation to be a pact not only with God but also with the British people. Therefore, no outsiders.

Generally speaking, the guests arrive in order of station, with lesser folk arriving first and the greatest — the King and Queen — arriving last.

Jill Biden and her step-granddaughter Finnegan Biden arrived at 9:39. They were seated in a back row of pews. It looks as if Mrs Zelenskyy might be sitting to her left, but I’m not sure:

Joe Biden snubbed back by King Charles as First Lady tucked away at back of Westminster Abbey Coronation congregation
https://t.co/tj1ApJMiix

— GB News (@GBNEWS) May 6, 2023

Prince Andrew got booed as his car was driven down The Mall to the Abbey:

Prince Andrew loudly booed by crowds as he is driven down The Mall ahead of King Charles's Coronationhttps://t.co/7xOfNvXLXR

— GB News (@GBNEWS) May 6, 2023

Former Prime Ministers arrived next, around 10:20. John Major and Tony Blair are wearing their Order of the Garter chains and brooches:

Former prime ministers Sir John Major, Sir Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss arrive for the Coronation of King Charles III.

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Rishi Sunak and his wife followed them:

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak arrives at Westminster Abbey for the Coronation of King Charles III.

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Royals from around the world arrived afterwards.

Prince Harry, Prince Andrew and Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, who arrived with their husbands, reached the Abbey around 10:45, just ahead of the King and Queen. If they had been on time, the Wales family would have arrived in between.

One of the husbands — Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi? — spoke to Harry and the two shared a short but pleasant conversation before Mapelli Mozzi joined his wife to walk down the aisle:

Prince Harry and Prince Andrew arrive at Westminster Abbey for the Coronation of King Charles III.

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So, Harry was not completely ‘all alone’, as some media outlets reported, although he was as he walked to his seat. Admittedly, it was an awkward moment for him:

Prince Harry looks painfully awkward as he arrives at Westminster Abbey alongside Beatrice and Eugeniehttps://t.co/BZpmh2fyPr

— GB News (@GBNEWS) May 6, 2023

Princess Anne, who probably arrived after Harry, Andrew, Eugenie and Beatrice, wore the cloak of Scotland’s Order of the Thistle, which is a deep green velvet. She wore a tall red plume in her ceremonial hat and was seated in front of Harry, obliterating him from view. A coincidence or not? We might never know.

Music played from 7:30 a.m. until the end of the ceremony, so it ended some time after 1 p.m.:

Music is played at Westminster Abbey as guests arrive for the Coronation of King Charles III.

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— GB News (@GBNEWS) May 6, 2023

Order of Service

The ceremony began at 11:00 a.m.

Excerpts from The Telegraph‘s Order of Service follow.

Music

The music came from several ensembles:

The service is sung by the Choirs of Westminster Abbey and His Majesty’s Chapel Royal, St James’s Palace (Director of Music: Joseph McHardy), with choristers from Methodist College, Belfast (Director of Music: Ruth McCartney), and Truro Cathedral Choir (Director of Music until April 2023: Christopher Gray), and an octet from the Monteverdi Choir.

The music during the service is directed by Andrew Nethsingha, Organist and Master of the Choristers, Westminster Abbey.

The organ is played by Peter Holder, Sub-Organist, Westminster Abbey. 

The Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists are conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner CBE.

The Coronation Orchestra is conducted by Sir Antonio Pappano.

The State Trumpeters of the Household Cavalry are led by Trumpet Major Julian Sandford.

The Fanfare Trumpeters of the Royal Air Force are conducted by Wing Commander Piers Morrell OBE MVO, Principal Director of Music, Royal Air Force.

The fanfares at The Recognition and The Homage were composed for this service by Dr Christopher Robinson CVO CBE.

The King’s Scholars of Westminster School are directed by Tim Garrard, Director of Music.

The Ascension Choir is directed by Abimbola Amoako-Gyampah.

The Byzantine Chant Ensemble is directed by Dr Alexander Lingas.

The Coronation Brass Ensemble is conducted by Paul Wynne Griffiths.

The Order of Service provides more detail with regard to what was played and by which group.

Procession of faith leaders and representatives and Commonwealth countries

Just before 11:00 a.m., the Abbey’s verger led the procession of faith leaders and representatives, beginning with the non-Christian faiths.

Christian leaders then followed, beginning with the group from Wales, followed by Scotland and Northern Ireland and ending with clergy from England.

They were followed by representatives from the 15 countries over which King Charles is sovereign, i.e. the realms. The Order of Service has the complete list.

The King’s Procession

At 11:00, a fanfare sounded, signalling the arrival of Charles and Camilla.

They were led down the aisle by Anglican clergy, followed by the various Pursuivants of Arms, then the Orders of Chivalry and Gallantry Award Holders.

After them came the Heralds of Arms, some of whom bore the items of regalia presented to the King later on.

The Queen Consort and her entourage followed.

The King and those attending him were the last in the procession.

Penny Mordaunt

Among the Heralds of Arms was the Conservative Leader of the House, Penny Mordaunt MP, who is also Lord President of the Privy Council. In her position as Lord President of the Council, she carried the Sword of State, which is large and heavy.

Some years earlier, she had appeared in a reality television series, Splash!, hence the aquatic references in this tweet:

Her work done, the sword passed to the one undoubted King, the lady returns to the lake. #Coronation #PennyMordaunt pic.twitter.com/WA7lNRj85l

— Angry People in Local Newspapers (@angrypiln) May 6, 2023

Penny Mordaunt, a Royal Navy reservist, was certainly one of the stars of the show. Even Labour MPs tweeted their admiration for her handling of the sword.

The Telegraph has another photo of her carrying it and this report:

Leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt has emerged as the quiet star of the Coronation ceremony – one that nobody saw coming …

For the ceremony, Mordaunt was required to carry the 17th-Century Sword of State into the Abbey in the King’s Procession, and continue to hold it aloft for much of the service – specifically at right angles to her body. The sword, decorated with royal symbols including the lion and union and fleur de lis, is also used during the state opening of Parliament.

Given its 4ft length and 8lb weight, this is no mean feat, as evidenced by her shaking arms, when she handed the historic weapon to King Charles. She had prepared for the moment though: “It’s drawing on all of my military drill experience,” she told Politico, prior to the event. The preparation paid off: Mordaunt performed the ceremonial role with such aplomb that her name was trending on Twitter. Labour MP Emily Thornberry tweeted: “Got to say it, @PennyMordaunt looks damn fine! The sword bearer steals the show.”

Mordaunt was the first woman to carry out this high profile role in a Coronation ceremony …

Her wardrobe represented a break from tradition too. Instead of the black and gold attire worn by the Marquess of Salisbury at the late Queen’s Coronation in 1953, she commissioned a new garment for the occasion that was rich with meaning.

It was an inspired decision. Mordaunt’s cape dress was by London-based label Safiyaa; a bespoke piece in a deep teal hue described as “Poseidon”, in honour of her Portsmouth constituency.

The look was completed by a bandeau-style hat by milliner Jane Taylor, who is a go-to for the Princess of Wales and the Duchess of Edinburgh [Prince Edward’s wife Sophie], and black ballet-style flat pumps, later switched to beige court shoes for her part in the ceremony.

The gold embroidery on Mordaunt’s cape and headpiece is by 250-year-old embroidery house Hand and Lock, which also embroiders the Royal cyphers. The fern design is a nod to the Privy Council uniform motif, adapted and “feminised” for the garment.

The look was modern and elegant, with just the right degree of traditional craftsmanship. Evidently, symbolic dressing is not a skill unique to the Royal family.

Mordaunt told Politico last week that she “felt it wasn’t right” to wear the same attire as Salisbury. Instead, she said that she wanted “to come up with something that is modern and will give a firm nod to the heritage” of the occasion.

Saturday’s well judged look follows her historic role in September, as the first woman to lead the accession council ceremony of the King at St James’s Palace.

The ceremony

When the processions were nearing their end and as the Queen Consort and King approached their chairs, the choir sang the now-traditional I Was Glad, which Hubert Parry composed for the Coronation of Edward VII in 1902. It is based on Psalm 122:1-3, 6-7:

I WAS glad when they said unto me: We will go into the house of the Lord. Our feet shall stand in thy gates, O Jerusalem. Jerusalem is builded as a city, that is at unity in itself. Vivat Regina Camilla! Vivat! Vivat Rex Carolus! Vivat! O pray for the peace of Jerusalem, They shall prosper that love thee. Peace be within thy walls, and plenteousness within thy palaces.

Having reached their places and still standing, Samuel Strachan, Child of His Majesty’s Chapel Royal, addressed The King:

YOUR Majesty, as children of the kingdom of God we welcome you in the name of the King of kings.

The King replied:

In his name and after his example I come not to be served but to serve.

The Archbishop of Canterbury then opened the service:

DEARLY beloved, we are gathered to offer worship and praise to Almighty God; to celebrate the life of our nations; to pray for Charles, our King; to recognise and to give thanks for his life of service to this Nation, the Realms, and the Commonwealth; and to witness with joy his anointing and crowning, his being set apart and consecrated for the service of his people. Let us dedicate ourselves alike, in body, mind, and spirit, to a renewed faith, a joyful hope, and a commitment to serve one another in love.

The Kyrie eleison came next, sung by Wales’s Sir Bryn Terfel CBE to an arrangement for the coronation written by Paul Mealor, born in 1975:

ARGLWYDD, trugarhâ, Crist, trugarhâ. Arglwydd, trugarhâ. Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.

The Recognition followed, which involved the King standing to the four directions of the Abbey — north, south, east and west — with a presentation acclamation for each, to which the congregation responded, ‘God save King Charles’. Fanfares sounded throughout.

The Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, The Right Reverend Dr Iain Greenshields, presented the King with the aforementioned Bible and said:

SIR, to keep you ever mindful of the law and the Gospel of God as the Rule for the whole life and government of Christian Princes, receive this Book, the most valuable thing that this world affords. Here is Wisdom; this is the royal Law; these are the lively Oracles of God.

The Archbishop of Canterbury asked whether the King was willing to take his oaths, read out one by one with an affirmative response.

The first two are as follows:

YOUR Majesty, the Church established by law, whose settlement you will swear to maintain, is committed to the true profession of the Gospel, and, in so doing, will seek to foster an environment in which people of all faiths and beliefs may live freely. The Coronation Oath has stood for centuries and is enshrined in law.

WILL you solemnly promise and swear to govern the Peoples of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, your other Realms and the Territories to any of them belonging or pertaining, according to their respective laws and customs?

This is the third:

WILL you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel? Will you to the utmost of your power maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law? Will you maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the Church of England, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established in England?

After affirming that he agreed to the oaths, the King placed his hand on the Bible, saying:

The things which I have here before promised, I will perform and keep. So help me God.

He kissed the Bible.

Then came the statutory Accession Declaration Oath, which the King took:

I CHARLES do solemnly and sincerely in the presence of God profess, testify, and declare that I am a faithful Protestant, and that I will, according to the true intent of the enactments which secure the Protestant succession to the Throne, uphold and maintain the said enactments to the best of my powers according to law.

He then signed copies of the oaths — no problems with the pen unlike at his Accession ceremony — and the choir sang William Byrd’s 16th composition to these words from the Book of Common Prayer:

PREVENT us, O Lord, in all our doings with thy most gracious favour, and further us with thy continual help; that in all our works begun, continued, and ended in thee, we may glorify thy holy name, and finally by thy mercy obtain everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Afterwards, the King knelt and said:

GOD of compassion and mercy whose Son was sent not to be served but to serve, give grace that I may find in thy service perfect freedom and in that freedom knowledge of thy truth. Grant that I may be a blessing to all thy children, of every faith and belief, that together we may discover the ways of gentleness and be led into the paths of peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The choir sang the Gloria to another William Byrd arrangement, this one from the Mass for Four Voices.

Rishi Sunak read Colossians 1:9-17:

FOR this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness; giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: for by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

The Right Revd Sarah Mullally DBE, the Bishop of London and the Dean of His Majesty’s Chapels Royal read the Gospel, Luke 4:16-21:

JESUS came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, ‘this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.’

A gospel choir, the Ascension Choir, sang an Alleluia based on Psalm 47:6-7a. The arrangement was composed for the coronation:

ALLELUIA, Alleluia! O sing praises, sing praises unto our God; O sing praises, sing praises unto our King. For God is the King of all the earth. Alleluia, alleluia!

The Anointing followed, with the choir singing in English, Welsh, Gaelic, and Irish.

A three-part Anointing Screen appeared in order for the King to be hidden from the public. Several Army officers in dress uniform from the Household Division held the three parts in place.

The King was divested of his Robe of State in order that he make the sacred covenant between God and himself. He sat in the ancient Coronation Chair, under which was the Stone of Scone (pron. ‘Scoon’), on loan from Scotland.

The choir sang Handel’s Zadok the Priest, originally composed for George II’s coronation in 1727. The work became very popular in a short space of time. Handel made it part of another opus of his as a result. It is based on 1 Kings 1:39-40:

ZADOK the priest, and Nathan the prophet anointed Solomon king; and all the people rejoiced, and said: God save the king. Long live the king. May the king live for ever. Hallelujah. Amen

Meanwhile, the Archbishop of Canterbury made the Sign of the Cross in holy oil from Jerusalem on the palms of the King’s hands:

Be your hands anointed with holy oil.

He did the same on the King’s breast and on the crown of his head, using similar wording.

He finished as follows:

And as Solomon was anointed king by Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet, so may you be anointed, blessed, and consecrated King over the peoples, whom the Lord your God has given you to rule and govern; in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

When the Anointing Screen was removed, the Archbishop prayed:

OUR Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who by his Father was anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows, by his holy anointing pour down upon your head and heart the blessing of the Holy Spirit, and prosper the works of your hands: that by the assistance of his heavenly grace you may govern and preserve the peoples committed to your charge in wealth, peace, and godliness; and after a long and glorious course of ruling a temporal kingdom wisely, justly, and religiously, you may at last be made partaker of an eternal kingdom; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The King rose to be vested in special coronation clothes — the Colobium Sindonis, Supertunica, and Girdle — for his investiture and crowning.

At this point, he was presented by separate participants with his symbols of office while the Byzantine Chant Ensemble sang. Their hymn was a nod to Prince Philip, who had been brought up in the Orthodox Church.

To be continued tomorrow.

Alleged snubs for King Charles’s Coronation Day

Traditionalist doubts about the wisdom of King Charles’s plans for his coronation on May 6 are increasing.

Religious aspect

As I remember, in his accession oath last year, the King pledged to be the Defender of the Faith, instead of Defender of Faiths, as he had wished to say so many years ago.

However, on April 8, 2023, The Mail reported that the King was at loggerheads with senior Anglican clergy over the role that other faith leaders could play in his coronation (emphases mine):

It is already expected that the Coronation will be more religiously and culturally diverse than the late Queen’s 1953 service.

But The Mail on Sunday has been told that Church leaders are resisting a more active role for other faith leaders, given that it is an Anglican ceremony, as well as a constitutional event.

A compromise option could be for the King to hold a separate ceremony at which other faith leaders would play an active role.

In a joint message last month, Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who will officiate at the ceremony, and Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell said the Coronation ‘at its centre is a Christian service… rooted in long-standing tradition and Christian symbolism’.

According to a source, a meeting held at Lambeth Palace last month heard that the drafting of the order of service was led by Archbishop Welby and ‘conducted with scrupulous regard for the range of opinion among Anglican clergy’ …

The Archbishop is also understood to be giving the King ‘religious guidance’ on the significance of his oath, the commitments he will make to his subjects and the Christian symbolism of the regalia …

The King, as Supreme Governor of the Church of England, is required by the Bill of Rights Act 1688, modified by the Accession Declaration Act of 1910, to declare at either his Coronation or at the first State Opening of Parliament that he is a ‘faithful Protestant’ and will ‘secure the Protestant succession’. 

In addition, the Coronation Oath Act of 1688 requires the King to declare he will maintain the established Anglican Protestant Church.

One source said Church laws meant that the participation of non-Christian faith leaders should be restricted to them just being present in Westminster Abbey and taking part in the procession.

On April 19, UnHerd posted an article urging the King to proceed with the traditional ceremony, ‘We non-Christians don’t need a “multi-faith” coronation’:

The coronation is, in formal terms, a solely religious ceremony. No legal power depends on being anointed. Despite concerns over the erosion of the religiosity of the coronation, the fact remains that placing oil blessed in Jerusalem on a monarch in imitation of the anointing of David, Solomon, and Christ is about as Christian as a ritual as can be. Indeed, just today it has been reported that the coronation procession will be headed by a cross made out of supposed relics from the cross on which Christ was crucified …

… Those of us who are not Christians are perfectly capable of appreciating the coronation on its own terms, without modification. While the meaning of the coronation is undoubtedly different for those of us who lack a relationship with Jesus, it is meaningful nonetheless. 

… Much of its significance comes from the fact that the King, obviously an Anglican, takes it seriously. By elevating the obligation to govern according to law into a perceived divine commandment, the coronation oath impresses upon the head of state the seriousness of their duty.

On December 24, 2022, The Express summarised the anointing ceremony, which is traditionally done under a golden canopy away from public view. The monarch removes his garb to don a simple white linen shirt to receive the oil from Jerusalem:

King Charles will be anointed with holy oil, receive the orb, coronation ring and sceptre, and be crowned with St Edward’s Crown, which was made for Charles II in 1661.

Afterwards, the canopy is lifted and the monarch reappears in full regalia.

Alleged invitation snubs

The aforementioned Mail article reported on likely snubs to nobles on Coronation Day:

Only about 2,000 guests and dignitaries are set to be invited – including more than 850 community and charity heroes – compared with the 8,000-plus peers and commoners who witnessed the 1953 ceremony …

However, disappointed MPs and peers can apply for up to 400 ‘pavement tickets’ to watch from outside the Commons as the procession passes to and from Westminster Abbey.

Lady Pamela Hicks

One of those snubbed, according to her daughter India, is Lady Pamela Hicks, herself related to the Royal Family and one of the late Queen’s ladies-in-waiting of long standing.

On April 19, The Mail reported:

She may have been in the shadow of Queen Elizabeth as her lady-in-waiting, but Lady Pamela Hicks has had a glittering life of her own as a relative of the royals.

The 94-year-old has experienced adventure, immense privilege but also tragedy, including the assassination of her father Lord Louis Mountbatten.

Moving in the Queen’s inner circles, she shared intimate moments with the Princess before she became monarch – being there to comfort her when she was informed of her father’s death and acting as a bridesmaid at her glamorous wedding.

Since the Queen’s death, Lady Pamela has become the oldest living descendant of Queen Victoria, but it was revealed today has failed to receive an invitation to the Coronation of King Charles next month due to a guestlist based on ‘meritocracy not aristocracy’.

Lady Pamela was born five weeks early while her parents were on holiday in Morocco and Spain:

Born Lady Pamela Mountbatten, her unexpected and exciting arrival in 1929 was the start of her whirlwind life.

Her parents, Edwina Ashley and Lord Louis Mountbatten, had been on holiday in Algeciras and Morocco where Edwina had ridden a donkey while heavily pregnant.

Pamela was then born five weeks early at The Ritz Hotel in Barcelona which King Alfonso XIII had surrounded by the Royal Guard who arrested a doctor entering the hotel with equipment to help deliver the baby.

In her podcast, Pamela revealed that her parents ‘lost their minds for a moment’ and considered calling her Ritzy because of her place of birth.

Her father Lord Mountbatten was Prince Philip’s uncle – the younger brother of his mother Princess Alice of Battenburg – and Pamela became his first cousin. 

She was the younger of two children, with her older sister Patricia Knatchbull later inheriting the title of 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma. 

Pamela and Patricia also spent much of their young lives with sisters the Queen and Princess Margaret …

After the abdication of Edward VIII and the crowning of their father as King, Pamela wrote in her diary: ‘Poor Lilibet and Margaret. They’ve got to go and live in Buckingham Palace.’

The article details Hicks’s life, which was interwoven with the Queen’s. Hicks was the widow of the famous British interior designer David Hicks, who died in 1998. They had three daughters.

India is her mother’s spokeswoman and announced that the Coronation Day invitation would not be forthcoming. Apparently, there are no hard feelings:

After the Queen’s funeral last year, India said her mother hoped to be one of the few people to have attended three coronations by attending the Coronation of King Charles III.

But she was informed on her 94th birthday that she had failed to receive an invitation to the ceremony which was to have a much smaller guestlist than that of the Queen’s in 1953.

‘One of the King’s personal secretaries was passing on a message from the King,’ her daughter India shared on social media.

‘The King was sending his great love and apologies, he was offending many family and friends with the reduced [guest] list.’

The palace official ‘explained that this Coronation was to be very different to the Queen’s’ in 1953, when thousands more squeezed into the Abbey.

‘Eight thousand guests would be whittled down to 1,000, alleviating the burden on the state.’

India, who is a goddaughter of King Charles and was a bridesmaid when he married Lady Diana Spencer, insists: ‘My mother was not offended at all.

”How very, very sensible,’ she said. Invitations based on meritocracy not aristocracy. ‘I am going to follow with great interest the events of this new reign’.’

Non-royal dukes also snubbed

Allegedly, some hereditary dukes have also been left off the Coronation Day invitation list.

The Express gives us the rank of nobility titles:

The ‘duke’ title stands as the highest-ranking hereditary title out of the five peerages.

In order, it is followed by marquess, earl, viscount and baron.

The article, dated April 15, states:

The King has snubbed a number of dukes by not extending an invite to them for his Coronation, taking place in three weeks’ time. In line with King Charles’s long-expected plan to slim down the monarchy, not all members of nobility have been invited.

… the Duke of Rutland and Duke of Somerset have not even received an invite, according to reports.

One Duke who will be attending is the Duke of Norfolk, Edward Fitzalan-Howard, who is also known as the Earl Marshal.

The Earl Marshal title means he is the highest ranking duke in the country – and is in charge of overseeing planning of the Coronation.

Richard Eden, of The Mail‘s Eden Confidential column, had more the day before, writing about the King’s:

… exclusion from the service in Westminster Abbey of most of the grandest aristocrats in the land, along with almost all their fellow hereditary peers. Even most of the 24 non-royal dukes – the most senior rank in the peerage – are not exempt from the cull …

Before going into more detail from the article, over 20 years ago The Spectator ran an informal series on how friendly and affable non-Royal dukes are. They are true gentlemen in every sense of the word, gracious to all, no matter whom.

It takes some doing to make them cross.

Now back to Eden Confidential and the dismay of the Duke of Rutland, head of the Manners family:

The Duke of Rutland, who lives in one wing of his 365-room family seat, Belvoir [pron. ‘Beaver’] Castle in Leicestershire, while his wife, Emma, lives in another, is one of the many dismayed and bewildered by their exclusion. ‘I have not been asked,’ he tells me, saying that he does ‘not really understand’ why. ‘It has been families like mine that have supported the Royal Family over 1,000 years or thereabouts,’ adds the Duke, who has two sons and three lively daughters, Lady Violet, Lady Alice and Lady Eliza Manners.

His own father, Charles, the 10th Duke, attended two coronations – Queen Elizabeth’s, at which, irked by a remark by Lord Mowbray about ‘upstart dukes’, he hid Mowbray’s coronet, and her father, George VI‘s, when the Manners family seemed to be everywhere. Charles and his younger brother, Lord John Manners, were Page of Honour to the Duke of Gloucester and Lord Ancaster, the Lord Great Chamberlain, respectively, while their mother was a canopy bearer for the Queen. Their father, John, the 9th Duke, ‘carried the orb in the procession into Westminster Abbey’, as Charles’s sister, Lady Ursula, later recalled.

This is what normally happens at a coronation after the anointing of the monarch — and what happened in 1953:

… not only did peers attend coronations, they were required to ‘give the kiss of homage and touch the Crown’ – a vestige of feudal allegiance to the monarch, for whom, it was implied, they would fight and, if necessary, die on the field of battle.

At Queen Elizabeth’s coronation, a royal duke, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, took off his coronet, ascended the steps of the throne, knelt before the Queen, placed his hands between hers and ‘pronounced his words of homage’. He was followed by two more royal dukes, the Dukes of Gloucester and Kent.

Then it was the turn of the senior peer of each ‘degree’ – the duke, marquess, earl, viscount and baron with the oldest titles. As they ‘paid homage in like manner’, their fellow peers of the respective ‘degree’, knelt in their places in the Abbey, removed their coronets, and also said their words of homage.

The Duke of Somerset was also ready to attend:

Perhaps the disappointment will be even more acute for the Duke of Somerset. ‘He was sprucing up the family state coach,’ a chum tells me, adding that the Duke had entertained the idea of arriving in the Abbey in it. ‘He thought he might be invited, even if not all the dukes were, because his is the second oldest dukedom after Norfolk’s.’

Alas, it appears that the Duke of Somerset, whose title was created in 1547, is among those who have been discarded. After explaining to me a few weeks ago that he didn’t want to comment at ‘this stage’, he now declines to say anything at all.

Viscount Hereford is another model of discretion:

Robin Devereux, 19th Viscount Hereford … as premier viscount, might have expected to ‘pay homage’ on behalf of his fellow viscounts. He, too, declines to comment, but has, apparently, taken his exclusion in good heart. ‘He says he’s still waiting for his invitation,’ I’m told. ‘But he’s not upset about it. He knows that this is a new era.’

What a mistake for the King to make.

Eden Confidential contacted Buckingham Palace, to no avail:

A Buckingham Palace spokesman declines to comment, but a royal source insists that ‘a good representation of non-royal dukes will be in attendance’.

OK! says that anyone snubbed might be invited to attend a reception on Friday, the day before the coronation:

… for those not in attendance at Westminster Abbey, it has been claimed that Buckingham Palace has added a special Friday “reception” to King Charles III’s Coronation weekend plans for a select group of individuals.

The Friday event is said to cater for a group of VIPs, some of which won’t have received an official invitation to the main event the following day.

It will be interesting to see who shows up.

Late April Royal anniversaries

The Mail enumerates the number of Royal anniversaries that occurred this week, complete with historic photos and news clippings.

Princess Grace of Monaco

The non-British event was the marriage of Grace Kelly to Prince Ranier in Monaco on April 18 (civil ceremony) and April 19 (wedding Mass) in 1956. She was 26 and he was 32. They spent the evening of April 18 apart as they were considered officially married only after Mass in St Devote Cathedral.

The Mail carried adverts for the home cook from Green’s: boxed Sponge Mixture and Carmelle custard powder.

Queen Elizabeth II’s birth

Our late Queen was born on April 21, 1926, in Bruton Street, Mayfair. She came into the world at 2:40 a.m. that day:

Then, her father, the future King George VI, was three years in to his marriage to Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, and the pair were looking forward to a life largely out of the public spotlight. 

But the course of the tiny princess’s life would be changed forever a little over a decade later, when her uncle, King Edward VIII, abdicated in December 1936 so he could marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson … 

She was born at at 17 Bruton Street in London’s Mayfair in what was the year of the General Strike.

A bulletin was issued to the Press the following day. It read: ‘The Duchess of York has had some rest since this arrival of her daughter. 

‘Her Royal Highness and the infant Princess are making very satisfactory progress’ …

The Bruton Street home belonged to Elizabeth’s Scottish grandparents, the Earl and Countess of Strathmore.

Her mother and father had moved into the house only weeks before her birth.

The property and its surrounding homes were demolished in the late 1930s and replaced with an office complex. 

Today, a Chinese restaurant stands near where 17 Bruton Street once stood.

The Mail of April 22, 1926, carried a front page splash of photos of mother and baby.

Adverts run along the right-hand column. Hyreco Dog Soap promised to ‘give your dog a treat!’ As Whitsun (Pentecost) was approaching, Blakey Morris & Co. advertised ‘WALLPAPERS FOR WHITSUN DECORATION’.

Queen’s 21st birthday speech

In 1947, Princess Elizabeth delivered her 21st birthday speech on the wireless (radio) during a tour of South Africa with her parents and Princess Margaret. The BBC also filmed the message to the British Empire and Commonwealth nations:

I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.

She certainly did fulfil that pledge.

She ended with this:

‘Let us say with Rupert Brooke: “Now God be thanked who has matched us with this hour”.

Seven months after the speech, the Princess married Prince Philip at Westminster Abbey.  

As Queen, Her Late Majesty would undertake more than 200 visits to Commonwealth countries, demonstrating her devotion to royal service.

Launch of the Royal Yacht Britannia

On April 16, 1953, just under two months before her coronation, the Queen launched the Royal Yacht Britannia in Clydebank, Dunbartonshire, with Prince Philip by her side:

The launch took place at the shipyard of John Brown & Co. Ltd …

… she told a huge crowd: ‘I name this ship Britannia. I wish success to her and to all who sail in her.’

Amid loud cheers, she then released a bottle of Empire Wine, which smashed on the side of the vessel.

A rendition of Rule Britannia then played as the ship entered open water. 

For the next 44 years, until the ship was retired by Tony Blair’s Labour government in 1997, the Queen would use the yacht both as a beloved refuge and for official overseas tours.

At 412ft long and weighing nearly 6,000 tons, at the time of her launch the Britannia was the largest yacht in the world.

During the summer, the ship would travel to the Cowes Week regatta of the Isle of Wight, and then for the Royal Family’s annual holiday at Balmoral in Scotland.

She also carried out 968 official voyages, sailing more than a million miles. 

An advert at the bottom of the Mail’s page with photos of the launch says, ‘I shave like a Prince with Personna Precision Blades’. Another advert is for Palmolive Brushless Shaving Cream: ‘NEW AFTER-SHAVE COMFORT FOR YOU OR YOUR MONEY BACK’.

Those were much happier days, in retrospect.

Will we look back 70 years from now and say that these were, too?

Looking back at Easter 2020 when many churches were closed

Since the coronavirus pandemic abated, being able to attend church every Sunday is a joy to millions of Christians who were locked out of their churches during the second quarter of 2020.

Three years on, and the memory of not being able to observe Easter, the greatest feast of the Church year, in our houses of worship, still evokes sharp and sad memories, as can be seen in one of the The Conservative Woman‘s Easter 2023 posts, ‘The Easter message of “Say no to lockdown”‘ and its many comments.

Here is but one exchange from the comments (emphases mine below).

The initial comment reads:

There can be no real healing in the church until the hierarchy admit closing their doors was an awful thing to do. A Light in the darkness? Not in March 2020 they weren’t. They were a particularly bad darkness because they should have offered Christians solace but instead they were a part of the machine.

They must publicly repent, promise it will never happen again and that like Pastor Artur Pawlowski [in Canada] they will all go to prison sooner than obey such unjust laws.

Of course they will do no such thing, any more than the Cabinet ministers of the time will admit to being wrong, because God is not their real master.

The reply reads:

Worse than that, they kept those doors closed tight at Easter. That was the biggest sin. It wasnt just one denomination either, it was all the churches. That put all congregations into isolation. There was nowhere to meet as the strict house arrest policy of the time ensured it ( no one could meet up with another – remember that?). Together with the police arresting people for trying to buy Easter Eggs or lipstick or even just wearing a skirt to go for a walk. (Edit, only if you were a woman though).

The worst was, of course that Bozo Bojo didn’t even order churches to close. They put themselves amongst the “Non-essential services”. The fat controller had, at the time, excluded them.

When I look around, it seems to me that it was that which killed Christianity. The locking of people out of the House of God and the isolating of people so that “Church” in any guise (defined as where two or more gather together, in my name, there will I be also) could not operate.
Jesus may have risen but from 2020 onwards, the church was well and truly crucified and buried. They no longer even seem to hold true to the faith.

(I note that mo ques did not close. They carried on it seems. Quietly and no one said anything).

In late May 2020, the Church Times published a survey questionnaire to assess British Anglicans’ views of locked churches. I wrote about it on June 8 that year.

In 2021, the results were posted online. On October 8 that year, Cambridge University Press published Ursula McKenna’s ‘Assessing the Church of England’s Leadership Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic: Listening to the Voice of Rural Lay People’ in the Journal of Anglican Studies.

Excerpts follow, beginning with this section from the abstract:

Of the 1460 rural lay people in England who took part in the Coronavirus, Church & You survey, 501 wrote further (sometimes detailed) comments on the back page (34 per cent participation rate). This study analyses the comments made by a subsection of these 501 rural lay people, specifically the 52 participants who voiced their views on how the Church of England’s leadership responded during the first four months of the Covid-19 pandemic … Overall, rural lay people were disappointed with the response of church leadership to the first national lockdown. If these churchgoers are to be fruitfully reconnected with their churches after the pandemic, then leadership of the Church of England may need to hear and to take seriously their concerns.

The introduction gives us the directive from the Church of England the day after Boris Johnson imposed lockdown on Monday, March 23, 2020. However, as the comment above states, Boris did nothing about churches.

The Church of England did on Tuesday, March 24. This was part of the C of E’s statement:

The archbishops and bishops of the Church of England have written collectively to clergy through their dioceses, urging them now to close all church buildings – other than when they are needed to keep a food bank running, but even then under strict limits. There will be no church weddings until further notice, funerals will not take place inside church buildings and the only baptisms will be emergency baptisms in a hospital or home.Footnote ²

The introduction continues:

Private prayer, including by priests, was no longer permitted in church buildings (churches were subsequently allowed to open for private prayer from 13 June 2020 and for congregational worship from 4 July 2020) …

A report published by the Centre for the Study of Christianity and Culture (CSCC), Churches, Covid-19 and Communities: Experiences, Needs and Supporting the Recovery, Footnote ⁶ lists a range of surveys and studies carried out by Christian organizations, other faith groups and non-faith organizations in just the first 12 months of the pandemic, all expressing a number of common concerns and difficulties.Footnote ⁷ Research carried out by CSCC,Footnote ⁸ which included surveys at three different points in time alongside qualitative interviewing, looked at three areas related to the closure of churches: the effects on the provision of social care, the exacerbation of the impact of Covid on individual and community well-being, and the impact of closure on the experience of grief and loss. Data from over 5500 respondents (mostly over the age of 60 and from rural villages or towns) who self-identified as ‘church leaders’, ‘church members’, and ‘general public’ provide evidence of responses reflecting ‘deep frustration and anger about closure of churches’,Footnote ⁹ with many church leaders and members expressing ‘frustration at the limitations on their ability to serve communities’.Footnote ¹⁰

Another survey undertaken during the first national lockdown and from which the present study draws its data, the Coronavirus, Church & You survey, was designed to address a range of discrete but interrelated issues arising from the pandemic, from the national lockdown, and from the Church’s national lock-up of churches. This survey has already been prolific in publishing its quantitative data …

Both the CSCC reportFootnote ²² and an earlier report by Nye and LobleyFootnote ²³ draw attention to the perceptions of churchgoers in respect of national church leadership during the pandemic. The study by Nye and LobleyFootnote ²⁴ draws on data from 288 Christians, the majority of whom were over 55 years of age, 57.5 per cent were Anglican and half resided in villages …

… older churchgoers aged 70 or over held a less positive attitude toward the national leadership. While 42 per cent of those under 60 considered that their denomination at the national level had responded well to the crisis, the proportion fell to 36 per cent of those aged 70 or over. While 43 per cent of the younger group considered that their denomination at the national level had done a good job of leading us in prayer, the proportion fell to 36 per cent in the older group.Footnote ²⁸

The research aims section says:

It is against this background that the present study will draw on data collected as part of the Coronavirus, Church & You surveyFootnote ²⁹ focusing on the views and experiences of lay people either living in rural areas or worshipping in rural churches, and exploring their perceptions of national church leadership during the first four months of the Covid-19 pandemic. While existing surveysFootnote ³⁰ have highlighted national church leadership as an issue of concern, the current study will add detail to that concern by focusing more fully on identifying those aspects of national church leadership that rural lay people perceived to be most salient …

The Coronavirus, Church and You survey offered space for additional comments:

If you would like to write about your experiences in your own words, you can do so here, or include anything that we had not asked that you think we should have included.

The Cambridge assessment is based on those replies.

Most of those responses were negative:

Analysis of these data identified ten themes, including: lacking quality leadership, comparing with other Churches, becoming irrelevant, centralizing action, closing rural churches, neglecting rural people, neglecting rural clergy, marginalizing rural communities, using the kitchen table [in worship videos], and looking to the future.

Nearly everyone responding was over 50. I reckon that is because only older people bother to read carefully anymore, i.e. to discover there was more to the survey.

Excerpts follow:

I just think there should have been regular national encouragement and care from the Bishops of York and Canterbury. They appear to have been very quiet in the crisis rather than leading. (Male 50s)

Embarrassing lack of leadership from the Archbishops. Unsurprising, but embarrassing, nonetheless. (Female 50s)

Nationally the Church of England has seemed to be wholly absent at a time when the voice of the Church should have been transmitted loud and clear…. From my perspective there seems to have been a wholesale failure of leadership. The previous very high regard that I had for Archbishop Welby has evaporated. Where has he been? (Male 60s)

… The opportunity should have been taken to take space within national newspapers to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. That this has not been done is a disgrace. The C of E does not deserve to survive and probably won’t. (Male 70s)

I feel quite angry that our archbishops, our diocesan bishop and local clergy have just meekly acquiesced to churches being closed … and aren’t agitating to have them re-opened. (Female 70s)

Some respondents made comparisons with other denominations:

When making these comparisons, the visibility and response of the Roman Catholic Church, in particular, was frequently singled out as a contrast to the leadership actions of the Church of England which was viewed as timid and as showing a lack of courage or determination.

Responses follow:

The Roman Catholic Church seem to have done a better job and it is interesting that media seem to have mainly been interested in what the Roman Catholic Church, or humanists, have to say, rather than the Church of England, since it has closed churches and ‘retreated’. (Male 50s)

The leadership provided at the top of the C of E during the pandemic has been pusillanimous. I am giving serious thought to joining our local URC [United Reformed Church, i.e. Methodists and Congregationalists]. (Male 70s)

Above all, the C of E had a golden opportunity to give prayerful leadership and was found lacking: the most inspirational, heartfelt and genuine words of spiritual comfort and belief have come from The Queen, not her churchmen. (Female 60s)

Some people said the C of E was becoming irrelevant as a result:

In the pandemic, the majority of the hierarchy of the C of E have yet again demonstrated their inability to understand the needs of humanity in pastoral as well as spiritual aspects. Closing churches … playing with online liturgies and generally avoiding most of the social and economic issues facing humankind (now highlighted by the pandemic). It is no surprise the C of E continues to decline/become irrelevant as it retreats to its ivory towers! (Male 60s)

The church, both nationally and locally, has become increasingly irrelevant during lockdown. It has failed to inspire, lead, nurture and care. Others, such as Captain Tom and Joe Wickes have captured the nation’s hearts. The church has done nothing worthy of note apart from complain about lost income. (Male 50s)

Others were unhappy about the top-down approach:

Clergy and congregations should have been trusted to act sensibly, given their local circumstances, within the broad national guidelines, ‘One size fits all’ was neither necessary nor appropriate. (Male 70s)

As a church warden and regular churchgoer I did not feel that the church hierarchy gave us good spiritual support during the lockdown. Also, too many Bishops who don’t appear to care for the grass roots of the Church. (Female 70s)

I am very disappointed with the leadership of the National Church, and I feel they have lacked courage, vision and faith in their incredibly slow reactions to the virus situation. At parish level we have done well, but no thanks to the diocese upwards! (Female 30s)

I have been deeply frustrated by the communications from central church (mostly nationally but also regionally) which have had a lot of ‘can’t do’, often presented in an unhelpful way rather than allowing for each parish to make decisions based on their local practicalities and local needs. (Female 60s)

 There was a distinct impression that the C of E was more about social care than worship:

Disappointing church leaders didn’t debate whether churches were an essential service, when bike shops, garages, hardware stores etc were regarded as ‘essential’. (Male 70s)

I am outraged that the church authorities seem to have made no defence of the importance of worship. Popping to the shop for milk or a trip to the garden centre seem to have been deemed a higher priority than religious practice, and I have seen no evidence that the bishops disagree with that assessment. It has been disgraceful. (Male 30s)

Anglican Church overreacted by closing church buildings completely. This reinforced a sense that the church is now behaving as not much more than an extension of social care. (Male 60s)

Some pressed the need for individuals, even non-believers, to enter a church at a crucial time:

People in rural villages who are not churchgoers often perceive the parish church as ‘their’ church and may well not appreciate being locked out of it, particularly when they may feel a need for private devotion or prayer. (Male 70s)

I feel let down by the Church. Church leaders have at no time shown any interest in finding ways to open churches…. There is dismay within the non-church going community that the focal point of our village is closed at a time when it might have attracted more interest in communal worship. (Male 70s)

As churchwardens many of us could have supervised a couple of hours a day in our churches or more in some cases to allow people in, to light candles and pray while cathedrals are staffed and could have continued to open for individual prayer. To be allowed to go to off licences and supermarkets but not to church has been wrong. (Female 60s)

I am furious that the buildings have actually been locked. The shops are open so why did the C of E feel it necessary to lock churches? The Church has turned its back on the needs of those who mourn, the ill, and the dying at the very time when the Church was most needed. I have a terminal condition and am unable to go to the place where I find peace – I feel utterly abandoned. (Female 70s)

I feel so sad … and that the Church hierarchy seemed to step back from its flock, a missed opportunity to be a Presence in a time of great need. Feel let down. (Female 60s)

As an organist, I am particularly annoyed about the closure of our church buildings …. Early on in the lockdown, the Prime Minister said that you could travel to work if you absolutely cannot work from home, which, I believe, means that if I need to use the organ to practise a piece of music I am learning for a future event, I should be allowed to do so. However, the Church of England went one step further than the Government’s advice and prohibited this possibility for me. I am also subsequently disappointed that, rather than appearing to lead the Church and wider community in spirituality and prayer through Holy Week and Easter, the Archbishop of Canterbury instead chose to spend time defending these actions at what is the most important season of the Church’s year. (Male 30s)

The decision to ban priests from their own churches was simply wrong. It was understood as a firm directive and the Archbishop’s attempt to finesse it later by saying that it was simply ‘guidance’ was unworthy. (Male 60s)

Some found Justin Welby’s use of his kitchen table in an Easter worship video unsettling. I fully agree:

Why on earth did the Archbishop of Canterbury celebrate Easter in his kitchen, when there is a chapel in Lambeth Palace? Did he think he was being matey and ‘down to earth’? No sense of spirituality. The Last Supper took place in an Upper Room, not Martha and Mary’s kitchen! (Female 70s)

And as for the Easter service from Archbishop Welby’s kitchen, I thought it trivialised one of the most important festivals in the church’s calendar – why couldn’t he alone have conducted that ‘service’ from a church? (Female 70s)

The Church of England has also not covered itself with any glory here either – hiding away in their kitchens trying to avoid any kind of blame as their major assets, their focal points around which their communities coalesce – the churches remain closed. Their priests barred from entering!!! (Male 60s)

Despite their scorn for the C of E leadership, respondents separated the C of E from their personal Christian faith:

My faith in Almighty God, our Creator, remains strong and firm, no thanks to the Church of England letting us down very badly, acting in an unnecessarily fearful and cautious manner – no trust in God that all will be well. In other words, when put to the test they failed. (Female 60s)

The assessment concludes:

Three conclusions emerge from these data analyses.

The first conclusion is that the rural lay people themselves took seriously the invitation and the opportunity offered by the back page of the quantitative survey. One third of the rural lay people (34 per cent) who participated in the survey took additional time to respond to the invitation …

The second conclusion is that the comments afforded rich additional insights into the theme of national church leadership among a sample of rural lay people. The themes identified by the analyses suggest that for this group of rural lay people these issues are important both for them personally and for the church. It is clear that these rural lay people were disappointed and frustrated with decisions taken at this time. In particular, they voiced concern about both the lack of any visible leadership, together with leadership that merely acquiesced to government policy as opposed to publicly challenging or asserting alternatives to that policy. The closure of churches was particularly hard to accept. This was seen as a managerial rather than a spiritual response …

… These data suggest that some churchgoers are becoming increasingly exasperated with the way in which they are being treated.

The third conclusion is that systematic attention given to the qualitative comments on the back page of quantitative surveys may be of proper benefit in shaping future research among churchgoers. The proper blend of qualitative and quantitative methods clearly enriches the science of congregation studies.

This was a useful study, particularly if, heaven forfend, this ever happens again. Will the C of E learn? I wonder.

2022 Christmas news: some cheer, but not much

It’s hard to know where to begin with this year’s Christmas news, much of which is disappointing, to say the least.

That said, there is a bright Christmas message here, so please read on.

Scotland legislation latest

On Thursday, December 22, the Scottish Parliament — or Assembly, as I still call it — passed legislation for Gender Recognition Reform, specifically to grant Gender Recognition Certificates (GRCs).

The bill passed in the SNP-controlled government 86-39 with no abstentions. Only two Conservative MSPs voted for it. The rest were SNP (Scottish National Party), Scottish Greens (SNP coalition partners), Scottish Labour and Scottish Liberal Democrat MSPs.

The final contributions were largely made on the basis of feelings. Wednesday’s transcript shows that every Conservative motion proposing greater controls over who can apply for a GRC and under what conditions was defeated. Debate had also taken place on Tuesday in an attempt to rush this through before Christmas break.

The Scottish Parliament thought this so important that it even cancelled their annual Christmas carol service, which, this year, was to feature Ukrainian refugees living just outside of Edinburgh.

A pro-independence — though not a pro-SNP — Scot who lives in England, the Revd Stuart Campbell, summed up the legislation in one of his Wings Over Scotland posts, ‘On the hush-hush’ (emphases mine):

The last few days have been perhaps the most turbulent in the entire history of the modern Scottish Parliament. Proceedings have been suspended repeatedly, members of the public thrown out and threatened with arrest, filibusters attempted, carol services cancelled, tempers frayed and sittings going on until the wee small hours.

All of this has happened in the service of the policy that the SNP has made its flagship priority for the last two years and more – the destruction not only of women’s rights, but of the very CONCEPT of a woman …

So you’d imagine the party would have been tweeting about it constantly, keeping its supporters informed about all the dramatic events and the progress of the bill, if only to reassure them that they were determined to get it passed before the Christmas break come what may …

But there wasn’t one solitary word about the thing it just spent three solid days forcing into law. And since it was a thing that most of its own voters, and indeed a huge majority of all Scots, were opposed to, readers might be forgiven for thinking that they just wanted it all kept as quiet as possible, as if they were ashamed.

We suspect, and very much hope, that their wish may not be granted.

The Revd Mr Campbell means that the Secretary of State for Scotland in Westminster might refuse to present the Bill for King’s Assent. Let’s hope so.

Another Wings over Scotland post explains what the Bill actually does:

… one of the most regressive, dangerous and frankly absurd pieces of legislation the modern world has ever seen. Last week, [First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s] government successfully managed to get the word ‘woman’ redefined from an adult human female to anyone to who has a piece of paper that says they are one.

Should obtaining this piece of paper involve a rigorous, measured process that takes psychological and criminal history into serious consideration and prioritises the safety of women and children, this would be permissible to the socially liberal. Alas though, the new GRA has shamelessly scrapped all safeguarding measures. For a man to legally become a woman now – and be entitled to access all female-only facilities, be it changing rooms or prisons, all he has to do is ‘live as’ a woman (whatever the hell that means) for three months followed by a three-month ‘reflection period’.

TRA-adjacent politicians have nowhere to hide with this now. They can no longer deny that sex-based rights will be grievously compromised and that predators and fetishists now have ease of access to women (and children’s) spaces, from bathrooms to sports teams.

In another post, Campbell linked to Tuesday’s proceedings where a Conservative MSP tried to raise an amendment calling for greater scrutiny of sex offenders wishing to change gender. Unfortunately, 64 SNP/Green/Lib Dem MSPs voted it down. In ‘The Disgraces of Scotland’, Campbell wrote:

The events marked simply and unquestionably the most shameful and contemptible moment in the history of the Scottish Parliament since 1707.

1707 was the year when the Act of Union was established between England and Scotland.

He also pointed out that voting down the amendment resulted in:

ceding the moral high ground to the Scottish Conservatives …

Anyone who knows the Scots knows that anything Conservative is unpopular there. That said, the Scottish Conservatives are the official opposition party in Edinburgh.

It should be noted that anyone aged 16 1/2 and over can apply for a GRC. It would appear that no formal medical diagnosis will be required with this new legislation.

Campbell’s readers have much to say on the matter. Some say this is a deleterious influence from American pressure groups. Others say that women will be in great danger.

Both are likely possibilities.

None of the MSPs supporting the Bill thinks that women will have any problem with sex offenders or deviants. However, a British substack begs to differ. ‘This Never Happens’ is a lengthy catalogue of gender-changers around the world who have committed horrific crimes, many of a sexual nature. Another site with a similar catalogue can be found here.

It is ironic that a woman is in charge of Scotland and she has overseen this legislation. In fact, she has supported it from beginning to end.

Scotland, like Canada, was such a beautiful country once upon a time. When I say ‘beautiful’, I’m referring to people. Another spirit — the devil — is moving through both nations.

One positive outcome is that the Scottish Conservatives can use this legislation to their advantage during the next election cycle. Unlike the SNP, Scottish Labour and Scottish Lib Dems, they alone voted en masse against it, showing that they are the true defenders of women and girls.

An UnHerd columnist, Joan Smith, says that this will come soon to England, should Labour win the next general election:

The man sitting next to you on a tram in Edinburgh, or turning up for a women-only swimming session, may self-identify as a woman — and the law will support him every step of the way. Centuries-old assumptions about what is real, about what people see in front of them, are being overturned. And it’s coming to Westminster as well, if Sir Keir Starmer follows through on his proposal to ‘update’ the 2004 Gender Recognition Act.

We have less than two years before a Labour government comes to power, weighed down by promises to import the idiocy (I’m being polite here) of self-ID to the rest of the UK. Two years, in other words, to watch what happens when politicians reject biology, common sense and the imperative to protect women against male violence. 

In the meantime, prisons, hospitals and refuges outside Scotland will face the headache of what to do when a man with a Scottish Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) — obtained with far fewer safeguards than elsewhere in the UK — demands access to women-only spaces. The prospect of expensive litigation is terrifying, but women’s organisations on both sides of the border are already preparing for the fight of their lives.

So crazed are MSPs by this ideology that on Tuesday evening they voted down an amendment that would have placed barriers in the way of convicted sex offenders who seek to apply for a GRC, complete with a new female name. They even rejected an amendment — proposed by Michelle Thomson, an SNP MSP who has waived anonymity to reveal her own experience of being raped when she was fourteen years old — that would have paused the process of acquiring a certificate for men charged with sexual offences.

This is an extremely troubling development. Let’s not forget that the SNP-Green government has pressed ahead with the legislation even after Lady Haldane’s judgment established last week that a GRC changes someone’s legal sex for the purposes of the 2010 Equality Act. Scottish women are now expected to accept that any man standing in front of them, waving a piece of paper, is a woman — even if they’re in court and the man is accused of raping them. 

It’s clear that a bill that was supposedly purely administrative has hugely expanded the number of individuals who can apply for a GRC, with catastrophic effects on women’s rights.

The rest of the UK is about to find out what it’s like living alongside a country in which observable sex no longer has any meaning. Welcome to Scotland, where the word ‘woman’ will now soon include any man who fancies it.

Conservatives in England and Wales can take heart from this for the general election in two years’ time, pointing to their colleagues north of the border. Who are the great defenders of women and girls? It certainly won’t be Labour.

Woman arrested for silent prayer

On December 6, a pro-life supporter from Worcestershire was arrested for praying silently in Birmingham in an exclusion zone around an abortion clinic.

Here is the video of her arrest:

Police in the UK arrest a woman for silently praying:

"Are you praying?"

"I might be praying in my head." pic.twitter.com/7Q8UnKmfa1

— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) December 22, 2022

A fundraiser is open for her:

Here's @ADF_UK's fundraiser for Isabel: https://t.co/kjigLzt8l5

— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) December 22, 2022

BirminghamLive filed their report on Tuesday, December 20:

A woman has been charged with breaching an exclusion zone outside a Birmingham abortion clinic. Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, aged 45, from Malvern in Worcestershire, was arrested near the BPAS Robert Clinic in Kings Norton on December 6.

She was later charged with breaking a Public Space Protection Order, said by Birmingham City Council to have been introduced to ensure “people visiting and working there have clear access without fear of confrontation”. Vaughan-Spruce will appear at Birmingham Magistrates’ Court on February 2 next year.

A West Midlands Police spokesperson said: “Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, aged 45 from Geraldine Road, Malvern, was arrested on December 6 and subsequently charged on December 15 with four counts of failing to comply with a Public Space Protection Order (PSPO). She was bailed to appear at Birmingham Magistrates Court on February 2 2023.”

The police must feel threatened by prayer, especially that of the silent sort.

On Friday, December 23, UnHerd ‘s Mary Harrington gave her thoughts on the arrest:

It’s customary in these situations to decry the breach of liberal norms involved in arresting someone not for doing something wrong but merely thinking. But if, as I’ve suggested elsewhere, all politics is now post-liberal, that means it’s once again explicitly the case that state power is aligned with a widely-shared moral order. 

This is a drum I’ve been banging for a little while, for contra the fond imaginings of some liberals we never really stopped ordering power to sacred values. After all, it’s not really possible to have a functioning polity otherwise. This, I argued shortly before the pandemic, is why hate crime laws appeared a scant few years after the abolition of blasphemy laws: they are blasphemy laws. We’ve just updated what we considered blasphemous …

…  Vaughan-Spruce’s arrest makes it clear that the zone surrounding an abortion centre is treated as sacred in a way that’s evidently no longer meaningfully the case (at least as far as the European court is concerned) of a church. She is an activist and director of March for Life UK, and has been previously arrested for protesting against abortion. But this in no way diminishes the growing sense that the activity being protected is also increasingly treated as sacred …

We have sacralised autonomy to such an extent that laws uphold women’s right to it, even at the cost of another radically dependent life. And the issue is growing ever more moralised, as evidenced by the fact that even thinking disapproving thoughts about this radical commitment to individual autonomy is now treated as blasphemous, in zones where its most extreme sacrifices are made. 

Wherever you stand on the practical issues surrounding abortion, this is indisputably a profound statement on the relative values we accord to freedom, care and dependency — one with profound ramifications for how we see the weak and helpless in any context. That the practice is taking on sacramental colouring, for a religion of atomisation, should give us all pause.

Indeed.

House of Lords Archbishop of Canterbury debate on asylum

On December 9, the House of Lords gave the Archbishop of Canterbury his annual debate. This year, the subject was the UK’s asylum and refugee policy.

I hope that readers will understand if I do not excerpt his speech here. They are free to read it for themselves.

We have taken in a record annual number of illegal migrants crossing the Channel this year, expected to be over 50,000.

We have also taken in large numbers of legitimate refugees and asylum seekers. We have also given visas to many thousands of legal migrants this year, particularly from Africa and Asia, namely India and Hong Kong.

UnHerd had a good analysis of what Welby said and our current predicament:

The Archbishop says he aims to support action that would “prevent small boats from crossing the channel”, but he also stresses that the UK is not taking many refugees and should take many more. 

Astonishingly, he dismisses the provision our country has made to welcome Hong Kong residents — well over 100,000 to date and many more to come — by saying “and that, by the way, is not asylum but financial visas”. It may not involve an application for asylum as such, but it clearly involves flight from oppression. Welby also draws the wrong conclusion from the fact that developing countries host many more refugees than developed countries. This is much cheaper than settlement in the West and makes return more likely. Developed countries should help pay the costs, and the UK leads the way in this regard.

The control Welby claims to support does not presently exist. The small boats cannot safely be turned around in the Channel and France will not accept their immediate return. The Rwanda plan is a rational (if imperfect) attempt to address the problem, removing asylum-seekers to a safe third country, where they will be protected, yet the Archbishop decries the plan on the grounds that it outsources our responsibilities. This makes no sense, for the UK not only accepts that Rwanda must comply with international standards, but also commits to funding the protection of those who prove to be refugees. Welby asserts that the plan has failed to deter. Indeed, because it has not yet been tried at all. 

The UK has good reason to resettle in safe third countries those who enter unlawfully on small boats, which would discourage others from (dangerous) unlawful entry and restore control of our borders. The historic tradition on which the Archbishop relies is alive and well in the provision our government has made, with wide public support, for temporary protection for Ukrainians escaping Russian aggression and for resettlement of the new Huguenots, the Hong Kong residents seeking to escape the oppressive reach of the Chinese Communist state. 

Lord Lilley — former Conservative MP Peter Lilley — posed the conundrum of loving one’s neighbour and not being able to accommodate everyone, especially those who arrive under false pretences:

This issue raises very difficult dilemmas for Christians. Being a very inadequate Christian myself, I take up the challenge from the most reverend Primate the Archbishop with trepidation: to try to formulate principles for governing our policy on asylum and migration. Not having direct access to the mind of God like the most reverend Primate the Archbishop, I seek those principles in the Bible.

I recall that our Lord said that the essence of Christianity is to love God and love our neighbour as ourselves. When asked who our neighbour is, he gave the parable of the good Samaritan, when a Samaritan helps a Jew—from which I deduce that our neighbour is not just the person next door to us and not necessarily a member of our own nation; it can be anyone. The first principle I therefore deduce is that, although charity begins at home, as a lot of my constituents used to tell me, it does not necessarily end at home. I am at one with the most reverend Primate the Archbishop on that.

Secondly, the Samaritan did what he practically could. We may be called on to help anyone we practically can, but we cannot help everyone. Again, the most reverend Primate the Archbishop recognised that and it is important that we recognise that our responsibilities are finite, in this respect.

Thirdly, when the Levite and the Jewish priest reached their destination, I have no doubt that they deplored how, owing to years of austerity, there had been insufficient spending on police and the health service to prevent the problem arising in the first place or to treat the person, instead of leaving it to the passing Samaritan. Therefore, my third principle is that, to be a good Samaritan, you have to give care, help and so on at your expense. We, as politicians, may have to take decisions on behalf of others but, in doing so, we should have consideration for the impact we are having on others and not imagine we are being virtuous when we do good at their expense.

The first principle is that charity begins at home, in how we treat people who have come to settle here. When I was a child, mass immigration into this country was just beginning. The parish in which I lived asked each family to link up with a migrant family, many of whom were lonely, isolated and, at worst, facing hostility. My family was linked up to a delightful Mauritian couple, whom we would invite to supper every few weeks. We became good friends. That was done by parishes across south London. I would love to hear from Bishops who have not yet spoken about what the churches are doing today to help integrate those who are here in our society and to be the good Samaritans to our neighbours from abroad.

But charity does not end at home. I pay tribute to those tens of thousands of people who opened their homes to families fleeing the bombing in Ukraine, while their menfolk remained to fight for their country. We should not imagine we are sharing in being good Samaritans if we throw open the doors of our country to everybody because, if we do that, we are doing good at others’ expense. We are, in effect, saying that migrants, be they legal or illegal, asylum seekers or otherwise, through housing benefit and social housing, will have access to rented and social homes. We all have our own homes, so we will not be affected. Therefore, more young people will have to wait at home or live in cramp bed-sitters for longer, because of what we, as legislators, think we are doing generously, without taking the impact on others into account.

The second principle is that our neighbour can be anyone, but it cannot be everyone. Millions of people want to come here. Look at the impact of the green card system the Americans operate, when they make 30,000 visas to the US available to certain countries and say, “Anyone can apply; there is a ballot.” Some 9% of the population of Albania applied when they heard about that being offered to them, as did 11% of the Armenian and 14% of the Liberian populations. These were only the people who heard about it and responded. The potential number who would like to come to America or Europe, if we open these so-called direct routes, would be enormous. Will we say to those who apply, at an embassy or some place abroad, that they would have the same legal rights, and opportunities to appeal or for judicial review if things are turned down? If so, potentially millions of people would join the queue. It would not shorten but lengthen it, so we have to restrict and to prioritise.

I submit to noble Lords that the priority should not be the boat people. They are not coming by boat from Basra, Somalia or Eritrea; they are coming from France, Belgium and Germany. Why are they coming here rather than staying in those safe countries? They are three or four times as likely to be rejected there. France, in the last year before the pandemic, forcibly repatriated 34,000 people. I find some strange double standards being applied here. There are no criticisms of France for being much stricter than us or of us for being much laxer than them, but one or the other must be the case.

I am coming to an end. If it is morally and legally right for the French to try to prevent people leaving their shores, and for us to pay and support the French in so doing, it should be morally and legally right for us to return them. If they cannot be returned, it is reasonable to try to deter them by saying, “If you come here, you will go to Rwanda. You always have the opportunity to stay in France.” I submit that we do not always consider these opportunities.

Later on, the Archbishop of York, the Right Revd Stephen Cottrell, spoke, an excerpt of which follows. The transcript hardly does his indignation justice. He ripped right into Lord Lilley:

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, that everyone is our neighbour. Of course, we cannot take everybody, but that makes it even more important that we have a fair system for everyone.

Dehumanising language promotes fear. Threat of destitution is used as a deterrent. Children are treated as if they are adults. Yet in our own country, among our own people, in our churches, other faith groups and communities, some things have gone well, such as the Homes for Ukraine scheme, where many people have found a home, other family members have joined them, and people have been able to get work. This is really good.

But why has our response to people fleeing other conflicts been different? Currently, the definition of family in our asylum system would not allow someone to join their sibling even if they were the last remaining relative, and being able to work and contribute is a long way off. The tragedy of our system lies in its exceptionalism, meaning that people receive differential treatment usually because of their country of origin. That underpins the Nationality and Borders Act, and I fear that further legislative action will be the same.

But we could learn from what is happening in our communities. The noble Lord, Lord Lilley, asked us directly about integration. I do not know where to begin. In hundreds of parishes and schools, and in other faith communities up and down our country, that is what we are doing—in English language classes, in befriending and in teaching people. I would be the first to admit that there are lots of things about the Church of England that could be better, but that is something that we are doing, alongside others, and it shows the best of British.

We need a system that will simply provide safe and legal routes for everyone to have equal opportunities to apply for asylum. All I am saying is that I think that would be good for us, as well as for the people who are fleeing unimaginable conflict and evil.

Finally, when it comes to being able to work, the Church of England, alongside the Refugee Council and the Government’s own Migration Advisory Committee, is a long-standing supporter of the Lift the Ban campaign.

I say all this—like many of us, I would wish to say more, but the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury said most of it—as winter arrives, and it is cold, and a cost of living crisis will inevitably affect the British people’s capacity to be hospitable. I say simply that a functioning asylum system is not a threat to our social cohesion as some fear or predict, but a dysfunctional, unfair one is.

As every small child knows at this time of the year, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, mentioned, Mary and Joseph came looking for somewhere to stay, but there was no room at the inn. Saying no, accusing those who are being hospitable of being naive, or passing the buck are easy, but saying yes, with a fair and equal system for everyone, opens up blessings for everyone.

A week later, Cottrell featured in an article in The Telegraph: ‘Forgive my “predictable leftie rant” on asylum, says Archbishop of York’.

It seems he knew he was out of order with Lord Lilley, who deserved the same courtesy as the peers agreeing with the Archbishop. It was good for Lord Lilley to speak politely on behalf of the British public.

Britons are paying upwards of £7 million a day just to house those crossing the Channel.

GB News’s Mark Steyn and his guest hosts have been covering the topic nearly every night:

Tonight #TheMarkSteynShow is live @GBNEWS at 8pm

In case you missed it, here's last night's show: https://t.co/yKITQ1AWsP

— Mark Steyn (@MarkSteynOnline) December 15, 2022

Taxpayers are deeply upset, especially during our cost of living crisis, which is causing many to choose between food and fuel.

Combine that with taxpayers’ personal expenses for Net Zero, and we are heading for disaster:

We are currently living through one of the biggest con-tricks in the history of the planet. The great virtue con. The parasitic elites are accumulating more power, wealth and control because of our compliance. It’s not virtuous. It’s greed at our expense.pic.twitter.com/cmajYqmHAH

— James Melville 🚜 (@JamesMelville) December 11, 2022

Red Wall Conservative MP Jonathan Gullis tried unsuccessfully to raise a Private Member’s Bill to get illegal migrants to Rwanda sooner rather than later:

‘We have a democratic, legal right, to protect our borders, to re-enforce our laws and people who come here illegally should be off shored.’

Conservative MP, Jonathan Gullis, who strongly backed the Rwanda policy reacts to the policy becoming law.’ pic.twitter.com/MGlQm7CRk7

— GB News (@GBNEWS) December 19, 2022

Hotels across England are being taken over by companies working for the Home Office to house the Channel-crossers:

The Mark Steyn Show: Room at the Inn …for Migrants https://t.co/oZlbojPAUK

— Mark Steyn (@MarkSteynOnline) December 20, 2022

Hospitality workers in those hotels are losing their jobs as the aforementioned companies install their own staff to manage them:

'Suddenly, it's like a factory.'

Journalist and former MEP Patrick O'Flynn talks about the 'disruption' for hotel workers, as UK hospitality staff are being sacked due to migrant hotels policy.

📺 Freeview 236, Sky 512, Virgin 604
🖥 GB News on YouTube https://t.co/Wa58gYYAod pic.twitter.com/9DV781sk9p

— GB News (@GBNEWS) December 20, 2022

The December 22 show also featured the seemingly intractable problem:

Former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie then swung by to weigh in on how much migrants are costing Britons.

The Home Office — read ‘civil servants’ — must do something now.

It’s obvious people are watching GB News, because they beat BBC News for the first time ever on December 14:

https://twitter.com/kelvmackenzie/status/1602981781833220097

Onwards and upwards!

House of Commons recess debate

On Tuesday, December 20, the House of Commons held its Christmas recess debate.

Normally, these are rather jolly affairs where MPs air wish lists for their constituencies for the New Year. However, this year’s contributions were rather grim, including those from Conservative MPs.

Once again, providentially, I tuned in at the right time to hear the member for Don Valley, Conservative MP Nick Fletcher. He closed his speech saying the following, the first part of which came as news to me:

Finally, Christian friends across the House tried to secure a Backbench debate on Christmas and Christianity, but by all accounts we were not successful. While I have this moment, I want to remind those in this place, and anyone who cares to watch, that although Christmas is celebrated in many ways across the world, the real reason is the birth of our saviour, Jesus Christ. He was sent as a saviour, and with the promise that whoever believes in him will have eternal life. I do not want anyone ever to forget that. Merry Christmas everybody.

Jim Shannon, a Democratic Unionist Party MP (i.e. from Northern Ireland), was one of the last MPs to speak. A devout Anglican — yes, they still exist — he gave a beautiful speech on the meaning of the season, most of which follows:

It is no secret that I love this time of year—I may have mentioned that a time or three in this House. There are so many things to love about Christmas: time with family; good food; fellowship; and, for me, the singing of an old Christmas carol as we gather in church. But the most wonderful thing about Christmas for me is the hope that it holds. I wish to speak this year about the Christ in Christmas, because, too often, we miss that. It would be good this year to focus on what Christmas is really all about. I ask Members to stick with me on this one.

The message of Christmas is not simply the nativity scene that is so beautifully portrayed in schools and churches throughout this country, but rather the hope that lies in the fact that the baby was born to provide a better future for each one of us in this House and across the world. What a message of hope that is; it is a message that each one of us needs. No matter who we are in the UK, life is tough. The past three years have been really, really tough—for those who wonder how to heat their homes; for those who have received bad news from their doctor; for those whose children have not caught up from the covid school closures; for those who mourn the loss of a loved one; for those who mourn the breakdown of a family unit; and for those who are alone and isolated. This life is not easy, and yet there is hope. That is because of the Christmas story. It is because Christ came to this world and took on the form of man so that redemption’s plan could be fulfilled. There is hope for each one of us to have that personal relationship with Christ that enables us to read the scriptures in the Bible and understand that the creator, God, stands by his promises.

I want to quote, if I may, from four Bible texts. To know that

“my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.”

That is from Philippians 4:19.

To trust that

“I am the Lord that heals you.”

To believe that

“all things are possible.”

That is Matthew 17:20.

We can be comforted by Psalm 147:3:

“He heals the brokenhearted, And binds up their wounds.”

Isaiah 41:10 says:

“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

The strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow come only when we understand who Christ is. One of my favourite Christmas passages is actually not the account of his birth, but the promise of who he is. We all know this:

“For to us a Child shall be born, to us a Son shall be given; And the government shall be upon His shoulder, And His name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

In a world where our very foundation seems to be shifting, how awesome it is to know that this our God is only a prayer away. A group of people come to the House of Commons two or three times a week, and pray for Parliament. I have to say how important it is to have those prayers.

As we think of this passing year—something that many of us do—we think about what has happened and perhaps look forward to 2023 with renewed hope for the future. I think we should look forward with hope; we have to do that. We should always try to be positive. In this passing year, my mind goes to the loss of Her Majesty the Queen. Many of us felt that so deeply, and yet her passing also carried the message of hope, because of Christ. I quoted this when we had the tributes to Her Majesty. It is important, I think, to put it on the record again.

The wonderful message that the Queen gave in one of her cherished Christmas messages—this one was in 2014—was crystal clear:

“For me, the life of Jesus Christ, the prince of peace, whose birth we celebrate today, is an inspiration and an anchor in my life.”

That was Her Majesty talking.

“A role model of reconciliation and forgiveness, he stretched out his hands in love, acceptance and healing. Christ’s example has taught me to seek to respect and value all people of whatever faith or none.”

It is my firm belief that this true message of Christmas is what can bring hope and healing to a nation that can seem so fractured. When I look at the headlines, I sometimes despair, but that is also when I most enjoy my constituency work, and getting to see glimpses of community spirit and goodness that are done daily and yet are rarely reported. Her Majesty’s speech in 2016 reflected that, when she said:

“Billions of people now follow Christ’s teaching and find in him the guiding light for their lives. I am one of them because Christ’s example helps me to see the value of doing small things with great love, whoever does them and whatever they themselves believe.”

At that point, Conservative MP John Hayes intervened:

It is heart-warming and refreshing to hear the hon. Gentleman’s plain and confident affirmation of his faith, and our faith too. By the way he speaks, he encourages all of us to reflect on the Judeo-Christian foundations on which our society and our civilisation are built, and I just wanted to thank him for that.

Jim Shannon thanked John Hayes before continuing:

The right hon. Gentleman is most kind. I am giving just a slight reminder of what Christmas is about. I think we all realise that, but sometimes it is good to remind ourselves of it. The example of Christ is one of humility, coming to the earth as a vulnerable baby, and of purpose, as we see the gold given that symbolises royalty, the frankincense to highlight his deity and myrrh to symbolise his purposeful death to redeem us all.

I am a strong advocate in this House for freedom of religion or belief, as the Leader of the House knows. She is always very kind; every week, when I suggest something that should be highlighted, she always takes those things back to the Ministers responsible. I appreciate that very much, as do others in this House. I am proud to be associated with that wonderful cause, and as long as God spares me I will speak for the downtrodden of my own faith and others. I speak for all faiths, because that is who I am, and so do others in this House with the same belief.

At the same time, however, like Her late Majesty, I am proud to be a follower of Christ. At this time of year I simply want the House to know the hope that can be found in Christ, not simply at Christmas, but for a lifetime. The babe of Bethlehem was Christ on the cross and our redeemer at the resurrection, and that gives me hope and offers hope for those who accept him and it.

From the bottom of my heart, Mr Deputy Speaker, I thank you in particular, since you have presided over this speech and the past few hours. I thank Mr Speaker and all the other Deputy Speakers, with all the things that are happening to them, the Clerks and every staff member in this place for the tremendous job they do and the graceful spirit in which everything has been carried out in the last year. I thank right hon. and hon. Members, who are friends all—I say that honestly to everyone.

I thank my long-suffering wife, who is definitely long-suffering, and my mum—

At that point, Shannon broke down in tears.

Leader of the House Penny Mordaunt stepped in quickly and graciously while Shannon composed himself:

The hon. Gentleman has often summed up how people feel, particularly at this time of year. I know he has had losses over the past few years, and he always manages to sum up the feeling of this House. Many Members in this debate have spoken about constituents or family they have lost, and we appreciate his bringing up these issues, as I appreciate all Members’ doing so. There will be some people thinking about spending Christmas apart from family they are not able to see, or having suffered those losses. I thank him and we are all willing him strength as he continues his speech.

After a pause, Shannon resumed and concluded:

I thank the Leader of the House for that. I mentioned my long-suffering wife; we have been married 34 years, so she is very long-suffering, and that is probably a good thing, because we are still together. My mum is 91 years old and I suspect she is sitting watching the Parliament channel right now to see what her eldest son is up to and what he is saying, so again that is something.

I also thank my staff members. I told one of my Opposition colleagues last week that I live in a woman’s world, because I have six girls in my office who look after me and make sure I am right …

Lastly, I thank my Strangford constituents, who have stuck by me as a councillor, as a Member of the Legislative Assembly and as a Member of Parliament in this House. This is my 30th year of service in local government and elsewhere. They have been tremendously kind to me and I appreciate them. I want to put on record what a privilege it is to serve them in this House and to do my best for them.

I wish everyone a happy Christmas, and may everyone have a prosperous, peaceful and blessed new year, as we take the example of Christ and act with humility and purpose in this place to effect the change that we all want and that is so needed in our nation—this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, always better together.

Mr Deputy Speaker Nigel Evans said:

Your mother and wife will be as proud of you as we all are, Jim. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!] As a person of faith, I thank you very much for putting the Christ back into Christmas in your speech. We come now to the wind-ups.

When acknowledging MPs’ contributions in the debate, Penny Mordaunt said:

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) should never have to apologise for mentioning Christ in this place—especially at Christmas. We are in a place where the architecture is designed to turn our faces to God. I thank him for his Christmas message.

And, finally — best Christmas wishes to Mark Steyn

In closing, hearty Christmas wishes to Mark Steyn who is recovering from two successive heart attacks:

Get well soon Mark!

💻 GB News YouTube: https://t.co/Wa58gYGZwFhttps://t.co/ayT5Mn41ik

— GB News (@GBNEWS) December 19, 2022

He is recovering in France but told viewers more on December 19. Incredibly, the first heart attack happened before he presented one of his nightly shows on the self-styled People’s Channel. He presented it anyway. Wow:

The GB News host suffered the first one “without recognising” the symptoms, before hosting his show on The People’s Channel.

Speaking on his current absence from GB News, Steyn said: “I’m too medicated to manage artful evasions.

“I had two heart attacks. Because I didn’t recognise the first one, as such, the second one was rather more severe.”

The experienced broadcaster spoke about the shocking ordeal, saying he “doesn’t look right”, looking back at images of himself presenting the Mark Steyn show during the first heart attack.

Speaking on SteynOnline, he said: “The good news is that the first one occurred when I was in London. If you get a chance to see that day’s Mark Steyn Show, with hindsight, I don’t look quite right in close-ups.

“By not recognising it as a heart attack, I deftly avoided being one of those stories we feature on the show every couple of nights about people in the UK calling emergency and being left in the street for 15 hours before an ambulance shows up.

“I had a second heart attack in France. With Audrey [his wife?] helping me in the ambulance, she told me I was 15 minutes from death.”

The presenter also revealed he would remain in France over Christmas and New Year as he is unable to leave medical care and return to New Hampshire.

GB News viewers will be sending Mark every best wish for a speedy recovery — and a healthy, happy New Year! We look forward to seeing him on the airwaves soon!