Religion

Peterborough Cathedral is facing financial collapse by Easter amid rising National Insurance costs, the cost of living crisis and a decline in donations.

The dean, the Very Rev Christopher Dalliston, has launched an urgent fundraising appeal, warning the cathedral will not survive without financial support.

He is hoping to raise £300,000 by the end of March, with Peterborough at risk of becoming the country’s first “part-time” cathedral.

The cathedral has been central to the city’s history for nearly 1,400 years and without extra funds it will not be able to keep its doors open seven days a week.

Late as in launching the fund raiser with only 3 months of the 1,400 years left?

Ever so slightly more seriously I do not, in fact, know what the solution to cathedrals is. They cost an absoluite fortune to run, they can’t be converted to residential (unlike a number of smaller churches), no other congregation would want to take on such a building (unlike many another church) and, well, what in buggery does one do with such glories?

Rosie, 25, said she was walking through a forested route in Portugal earlier this summer when she came across a man with no trousers on who was masturbating as he watched her. The local police did not pick up when she tried to call them.

“It was terrifying,” said Rosie, who asked that her full name not be published. “I just felt completely alone at that point.”

The incident had left her feeling unsafe, making her realise her unique vulnerability as a lone female pilgrim.

Because you’re a lone woman on a very rural part of a pilgrim trail. You are, you see, alone?

It’s also worth putting this into context:

Lone female pilgrims walking the Camino de Santiago have spoken of being subjected to “terrifying” sexual harassment in near-deserted areas of rural Spain, Portugal and France.

In interviews with the Guardian, nine women alleged they had experienced harassment while attempting the pilgrimage route over the past five years, with several saying they had feared for their lives.

9 over 5 years.

A pilgrim approaches Castrojeriz in Castilla v León, Spain. More than 230,000 women are said to have walked the Camino last year.

There are suburban high streets worse than that….

A British clergyman has reportedly died during a night of alleged drug-fuelled sex with a Belgian priest.

The 69-year-old English priest is understood to travelled to the country for the papal visit, but died after consuming “ecstasy and poppers” and engaging in sexual relations, according to a Dutch-language newspaper.

Father Bernard, 60 – the priest who allegedly entertained the unnamed British clergyman in his rectory – had since been arrested, Het Laatste Nieuws reported on Sunday.

No, that’s not the amusement. Such things happen.

It’s that no one at all – and I’ve looked at a number of reports on this – tells us which denomination the priests were.

I don’t know whether the Flemish are generally C or P for example. The Walloons, yes, C but…..

At which point, some sterling detective work by yours truly. This is the church of the Belgian priest. Roman Catholic Dioceses of Antwerp. Thus at least one of them – and we’d assume both I guess – are Papists.

At which point we can all get back to the usual commentary. One I’ve seen was “Good on ’em, no kids, eh?” and another “Chemsex at 69? Most sporting” etc….

More allegations of sexual abuse made against French priest Abbé Pierre
Catholic church says it will open its records on the once-revered Emmaüs founder, who died in 2007

He’s already found out about it all, hasn’t he? All about God, forgiveness, the weighing of souls and all that?

The Pope has allegedly said there are too many homosexual men entering Italian seminaries and they should be kept out, claiming there is “too much faggotry” among those training for the priesthood.

Not just the Italian seminaries either. It’s a more general complaint across the Church.

Up for debate was a previous regulation issued in 2005, which banned men from entering seminaries if they practised homosexuality, had “deeply rooted” homosexual tendencies or supported “gay culture”.

Being gay isn’t a problem in the slightest. But priests are supposed to – however sensible this is or not – subsume their active sexuality. Like, you know, not have sex? Which is where the problem comes in. Not chasing the nuns around the cloister is easy enough to observe and or enforce. Wanna come to my cell in the seminary for a little “prayer” is more difficult.

The rector of Liverpool has quit the Church of England over “race, gender and sexuality discrimination”.

Canon Dr Crispin Pailing left the position he has held for a decade, saying he cannot continue to work “in an organisation which perpetuates bias and discrimination against sections of society”.

Dr Pailing, who was made an MBE for services to the community in December, advocates for same-sex marriage to be treated the same as the marriage of heterosexual couples.

Sounds to me like this is as with a Major General leaving on not getting the nod for Lt Gen. The COO off when not made CEO. Not makin’ me a bishop? The ‘ell with you then.

Of course, with views like this the bigt 1question is why the hell wasn’t he made a CoE bishop?

“By voting yes in the family referendum, we’re saying that all families are equal, regardless of the marital status of parents,” he told reporters.

Marriage is a contract. The contract involves some legal issues. Those who marry have that contract, those who do not do not. Therefore the unmarried and the married are not equal.

Perhaps they should be regarded as equal in moral and ethical value, perhaps they shouldn’t, but in legal terms they’re not equal simply because marriage is that contract.

Super-rich families and wealthy investors will be asked for help by the Church of England to build a £1 billion reparations fund to atone for the “great evil” of the slave trade.

A £100 million pot announced by the church last year is “insufficient” to address the “enduring harms from enslavement” that persist today, an independent report has found, calling for a tenfold increase.

The church made the commitment after finding that a significant chunk of its £10.3 billion wealth could be traced back to profits from slavery, largely through a fund given to the church by Queen Anne in 1704 that invested heavily in the slave trade.

Sure. We made money from the slave trade. We’ve still got it. But you should pay the reparations.

Just, you know, like the stance and dress?

A Christian councillor who tweeted “Pride is not a virtue but a sin” is being investigated by Conservative headquarters.

King Lawal, a Northamptonshire councillor, has been suspended from the Conservative Party and said he has been “cancelled” by six other organisations after expressing his religious beliefs on social media.

Responding to images of pride parades organised by LGBT groups at the end of last month, he wrote: “When did Pride become a thing to celebrate. Because of Pride Satan fell as an arch Angel. Pride is not a virtue but a Sin. Those who have Pride should Repent of their sins and return to Jesus Christ.

Pretty standard christianity thing. Not even about buggery etc. But about pride. Pride’s a bad thing in christianity. Humble and meek is the thing.

Soul Survivor urges worshippers to pray for suspended pastors
Victims accused the church of ‘gaslighting’ congregants by asking them to support those accused of failing to act on claims of abuse

Pray for sinners? Who could possibly do that? What does anyone think this is, a Christian church or summat?

So, this other work I do then, slight change for Monday:

Knew about UK – “late may bank holiday” or summat, isn’t it? What used to be Whitsun – which I never knew what that was. But. US Memorial Day.

Pentecost tho’? Why the Scandis celebrating that?

Pentecost is one of the Great feasts in the Eastern Orthodox Church, a Solemnity in the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, a Festival in the Lutheran Churches, and a Principal Feast in the Anglican Communion.

Ah, Lutherans. No Papists taking the day off tho’. Nor non-US colonials.

Shrug.

Gorillas and other apes spin themselves around in circles to get “high” – and early humans who lived millions of years ago may have done the same, scientists believe.

Researchers saw a viral video of a gorilla spinning around in a pool and wondered why the ape was behaving like this, if it was more widespread, and what purpose it could have.

Further online research revealed it to be a common behaviour and analysis of more than 40 videos showed the apes use ropes or vines to rotate more than five times at a speed of 1.5 revolutions per second.

The ruction? That Sufi idea of spindancing into a closer relationship with God. This is thus ancient wisdom or the behaviour of an ape?

Humza Yousaf suggests SNP rival Kate Forbes thinks gay marriage ‘inferior’
Front-runner in race to succeed Nicola Sturgeon says Scots want a leader who ‘shares their values’

Og course, this is politics, so don’t expect any logic or fairness in the arguments being used.

Kate Forbes said women church ministers are “ignoring God’s plan”, it has emerged in the latest controversy to hit her SNP leadership campaign.

How many atheists and agnostics are going to weigh on on this then?

BTW, do the Wee Frees split the congregation like mosques? Or not?

Why isn’t there universal faith in female priests?

We could go further – why isn’t there a universal faith in female Imams?

Gay “clubs” operate openly in Catholic seminaries, the institutions that prepare men for the priesthood, the late Pope Benedict XVI has claimed in a posthumously published book scathing of Pope Francis’s progressive agenda.

In a blistering attack on the state of the Catholic Church under his successor’s papacy, Benedict, who died on Dec 31 at the age of 95, said that the vocational training of the next generation of priests is on the verge of “collapse”.

He claimed that some bishops allow trainee priests to watch pornographic films as an outlet for their sexual urges.

Benedict gave instructions that the book, What Christianity Is, should be published after his death.

What was surgery like in first century Palestine?

Jesus could have been transgender, according to a University of Cambridge dean.

For the UK, the Ulster bit is the Presbyterian heartland of the Plantation. Liverpool is the Irish and Catholic immigration. The islands are the Wee Frees (??). France is the Vendee – the Catholic and Royalist anti-revolution so harshly put down by the Jacobins. Andalusia was Muslim until 1492, some hangover there. The N Spain bit is, umm, the Carlists of Navarre? V. Catholic. Romania is Transylvania, presumably the Hungarian speakers holding to religion as well as language. Rome is Vatican, well, D’Oh. S Germany is what, Catholic Bavaria? N Albania is the old Venetian Stato Del Mare (spelling?).

Greece is Salonika and no, I don’t know why there.

However, from those other examples at a guess I’d say there’s some different cultural/effnik grouping which clings to religion as one of the differentiators of that grouping. Because that’s much of what’s happening elsewhere. Dunno why the Tatras are more religious than most of Poland but the Czech bit is Moravia and they’ve long had that Catholic/Protestant thing going on.

Anyone got any better ideas?

The areas that are more religious are those which are effnikly different anyway, religion being a marker of that difference? Not as a proof, a 100%, but as a tendency?

A Catholic priest has caused uproar in Ireland after declaring that the deputy prime minister, Leo Varadkar, and other gay politicians will go to hell.

Fr Seán Sheehy, 65, condemned homosexuality, trans rights and abortion rights from the pulpit and in media interviews this week, drawing widespread censure, including from his own bishop.

Some called the comments a throwback to a vanished Ireland, others linked them to Sheehy’s exposure to US culture wars during 42 years serving in US dioceses.

Could actually be just that he’s a Catholic priest who has actually read the stuff about what Catholic priests are expected to believe.

You know, we are indeed all God’s little children and here’re the family rules he’s laid down about how we should live our lives. Obey them and be with him in the next life – don’t and don’t. Hell being the absence of being in God’s presence in that eternity.

Now, we out here don’t have to believe all of that as the majority of humanity doesn’t believe the Catholic Church’s take on these things. Largest centrally organised religion in the world it may be but it’s not dominant nor a majority. But complaining that a Catholic priest actually believes Catholic teaching is a bit much, no?