Establishment religion under scrutiny

It was such a relief to wake up to a blue sky this morning, after nearly a fortnight under cloud cover. After breakfast and Morning Prayer, I fell asleep in the chair again for another three quarters of an hour. It seems that really need eight hours worth these days. Then the usual Monday housework, and preparing text to record for next week's Thursday Morning Prayer. I made lunch as Clare went out shopping. I started a bit late and she arrived home late, just as it was ready to serve. After we'd eaten I recorded what I'd prepared, then went for a two hour walk in the park. The last load of crush barriers used for Saturday's athletics meeting were being loaded on to a lorry to return to storage as I started. The bulk of the clearing up was done late Saturday or yesterday. Clear-up takes a lot longer than setup. A couple of the dead trees were felled this morning leaving behind piles of logs for collection, the branches having been already cleared away. I arrived home just as the western horizon turned pink after the sun had gone from view.

After supper, I edited the audio recorded earlier, then watched a couple of episodes of the fourth series of Danish crimmie 'Those who kill', about the work of a Copenhagen based criminal profiler dealing with perpetrators active across the border in the Swedish city of Malmö. I've noticed over years of watching European crime drama series how many are set in border zones: Finland and Russia, Germany and Poland or France, Italy and Switzerland or Austria, and there are island based series, as well as those set inland in big cities, and rarely in rural areas. Cross border crime is perhaps a growing phenomenon, on the back of the internet, not just financial fraud but in physical reality too, as contraband and people are trafficked.

The media today is reporting calls from senior Anglican church leaders for the resignation of Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury. He's one of several CofE bishops criticised for failing to take inquire into stories about a senior evangelical church lawyer now dead, who had a history of violently abusing boys at church camps over a fifty year period, with punishment beatings to ward off temptation to masturbate. This started well before safeguarding discipline was introduced in church practice, before the crimes of sex abuser Bishop Peter Ball were exposed and punished. Those who were aware of allegations ahead of official criminal complaints being made, were clearly reluctant to tackle such powerful figures - much the same as happened with Jimmy Saville and Mohammed Al-Fayed. 

Anxiety about undermining the church's reputation in the public eye, yet again leads to further erosion of  the institutional church's credibility. It's a sordid reality of life that the wrongdoings of those occupying positions of high status, power and wealth can go undetected and unpunished simply because those of lesser authority and status around them fear the consequences of drawing attention to them. There are situations in which allegations aroused are proved unfounded, and this is equally damaging to all involved. If the Archbishop is forced to resign due to errors of ignorance or omission, what is going to happen to other Bishops and senior clergy who were aware things were not right, that there was a whiff of iniquity behind the mask of conservative piety?

On the record

Another sunny start to the day, with a layer of frost on cars in the street. By half past ten, while Clare was having her on-line jazz piano lesson, I went for a refreshing walk, first around Thompson's Park, then to Llandaff Village, then down to Blackweir and back home in time to make lunch.

In the early news it was reported from health authorities in Yorkshire that they were ahead of schedule with their covid vaccinations and had run out of supplies. It's being said that there are enough supplies in the country to meet the target of inoculating the top four categories of vulnerable people by mid February, but it's a matter of scheduling and delivery logistics. This is much the same as what's been reported here in Wales, except that the Welsh Government and Health Boards have stuck to their measured delivery plan and not run out for racing too fast, to avoid having the vaccination teams idling or stood down. First Minister Mark Drakeford is being harrassed by the BBC for giving honest answers to vaccination questions. It's not the first time he has been targeted for criticism for getting things right, acting in advance of English government moves and publicity.

A letter arrived for me in today's post from CofE's Archbishop's Council, inviting me to register my basic clerical identity details on an English church national database, for public reference. Hitherto, the world has relied on Crockford's Clerical Directory, a respected independent publication which has been around since 1858, and whatever information is made publicly available by each diocese. It's possible for clerics to get left out of either, and be difficult to trace, a concern when it comes to safeguarding issues. The new database will also cover lay church office holders and workers. I'm asked, as I hold a Europe diocese PTO and worked for half my ministry in the Church of England. Church in Wales, as disestablished Province of the Anglican Communion will already have its own database on which I appear as a retired licensed cleric with a PTO. Anyway registration on the CofE database only took a few minutes, then I received a confirmatory email.

By the time I went out for a load of bread after lunch the sky had clouded over and the pavement was wet. I thought the shower was just ending, but as I walked it really began in earnest, and I got quite wet. Not long after I got back, the rain stopped, the sky cleared and the temperature dropped. Another frosty night to come, and no sign of the promised snow down here on the coast.

The wound pain was quite acute for a while this evening. I don't know what to do about it. No chance of getting a wound specialist to look at it without going through the rigmarole of a GP or hospital visit. I'm not sure if a district nurse could do anything other than look at it and recommend a specialist looks at it. They're all so very busy with far worse medical crises to manage, and it's not exactly life threatening. No sign of infection, just sharp excruciating pain sometimes, which takes a while to recover from, the sort of pain that analgesics can't deaden, as it stimulates the vagus nerve, like hitting a panic button. Walking is the only thing that helps. I've done 13km instead of 10 today.

I watched this week' episode of 'Rebecka Martenson Arctic Murders' this evening. I love to see the snow covered terrain and the way it slows life down naturally. Sara observed that Swedes in the north naturally speak slowly, and take time taking with each other, yet when something goes amiss they have very fiery tempers.

The evening news told of a troubling early statistical report on the impact of the new coronvirus variant, and intimations that lock-down measures will stay in place until April. The government has talked about 'following the science', but it's been noticeable how slow the reaction has been to new data, as if needing to soften the impact and avoid inevitable economic impact. It's not worked. Despite vaccination roll-out happening at a remarkable pace, infections and deaths still rise. The situation is not under control, and the tone is more serious and less upbeat than it was (apart from vaccination news), as if the government now using anxiety to motivate non compliant people. I believe that from the outset, measure should have been imposed more strictly so that people would get used to how it inevitably has to be in order to bring the pandemic to an end. 

Strict measures

This morning I drove out the San Rafel to attend the nine o'clock prayer prayer meeting, led by Sarah. It was my first time to navigate my way to the church since Sarah took me there to show me on Wednesday before going to the house, and I was only a few minutes late finding my way there. It was nicely structured around the Common Worship Office of Morning Prayer with almost an hour's detailed intercession list for the chaplaincy's people and ministry, the diocese and the wider world. Time well spent in my opinion.

The village church, dedicated to the healing angel at the crossroads (as in the deutero-canonical book of Tobias) holds about a hundred and fifty people, and has a fair sized porch area outside where open air activities can be held in a sheltered open air space. Simple but effective social design. Afterwards the six of us went to the bar/restaurant in the main street for coffee and bread covered with tomato pulp and olive oil, the standard Spanish breakfast snack. We chatted for an hour then went our separate ways.

I'm getting into the habit now of cooking for lunch every other day, enough for two, as I would at home. I don't mind the repetition, and sometimes add extras second time around. Then I went for a walk along the Cala Bassa road, just to look at the landscape, although I didn't go all the way there as I didn't want to over reach myself. On the way back I stopped as Es Cuco, to buy some chicken, breast which I fancied for a change, and cooked it when I got back. That will do me several meals I suspect.

Clare called me while I was at the shop, and we talked while I was walking and then at home for over an hour on WhatsApp. Before early bed, I have to prepare for tomorrow. Instructions about communion and the coronavirus have just been issued by the diocese in Europe, banning intinction so what we thought we'd do tomorrow must now change. The Church in Wales instructions are just as strict. The CofE instruction allow a little discretion for people in unaffected areas, I suppose. European chaplaincies are on the front line. Genoa chaplaincy, I understand, has stopped meeting  and is video streaming worship to member's digital devices instead. I hope it doesn't come to that everywhere. I quite like the idea of using the international deaf sign language greeting of peace as social physical contact is now discouraged if not banned. How many outgoing people will forget, I wonder?