Durham Cathedral demands Covid passes from worshippers

urham Cathedral is demanding Covid passes from worshippers – in defiance of official Church of England guidance. 

Those attending Christmas services will need to show proof either that they are vaccinated, have tested negative within the previous 48 hours or have recovered from the virus. 

The move has sparked anger amid claims that it is 'profoundly at odds' with the spirit of the festive season. 

In its Covid guidance, the Church says it has 'a clear policy of encouraging people to be vaccinated, but, other than in very exceptional circumstances, [it is opposed] to limiting access to church services or organisations on the basis of vaccine certification'. 

It adds: 'Such an approach would run contrary to the principle of the Church being a home and a refuge for all.' 

But authorities at the 928-year-old cathedral – which is the seat of the Bishop of Durham, Paul Butler – said they have 'taken a cautious approach to the Covid-19 restrictions from the start of the pandemic and we're continuing to keep measures in place to minimise risk and reduce the pressure on our NHS services'. 

Around 80 per cent of its festive services will require a Covid pass. 

The Rev Jamie Franklin, one of 1,000 church leaders to send Boris Johnson an open letter describing vaccine passports as a 'fundamental betrayal of Christian belief', urged the dean and chapter to reconsider their stance.  

He said: 'Christmas is a time when we remember God's willingness to be with the lowly, the outcast and the poor. 

'The decision to bar from entry to church a sub-section of society who are deemed to be unclean and dangerous is profoundly at odds with the Christmas message.' 

Jodie Beck, of civil rights group Liberty, said: 'Durham Cathedral should not be arbitrarily making rules that affect how people can access services.' 

The Church of England said: 'We won't be commenting on Durham Cathedral.' 

Reference: Jacinta Taylor For The Mail On Sunday

Israeli pilgrimage disaster inquiry urges cap on visitors, food

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An Israeli state inquiry into a crush that killed 45 people, including Americans and Canadians, at a Jewish pilgrimage site in April recommended on Monday that future admissions be capped and ceremonies streamlined in order to prevent overcrowding.

The panel, headed by a former Supreme Court chief justice, submitted interim findings designed to help authorities better plan for the next festival at Meron, the Galilee tomb of second-century sage Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, on May 18-19.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the annual commemorations could draw as many as 200,000 worshippers for all-night prayer, mystical songs, picnics and dance around bonfires.

Tens of thousands came on April 30 to the hilltop pilgrimage site, which covers about 5.6 acres. When a crowd surged into a narrow tunnel, 45 men and boys were asphyxiated or trampled to death. Six victims were Americans, two were Canadian.

Reuters/Ronen Zvulun FILE PHOTO: Ultra Orthodox Jews look at stairs with waste on it in Mount Meron

"The material brought before the commission and testimonies heard by it indicate that the maximal number of people that could be safely contained at the area at the same time is approximately 20,000," the panel said in a 16-page report.

While not recommending a target number, it said more space could be freed up by banning tents and pirate vendors at the site and by holding one central bonfire ceremony.

Pilgrims could be encouraged to rotate by bussing them in and out on tickets valid for specific hours, the panel said. It advised against allowing in food to "reduce the duration of stay (and) the danger of falling and slipping on garbage".

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's government signalled it would implement the findings.

"The 2022 observances at Meron will be entirely different from the observances held heretofore, and will take place according to other safety standards," Religious Affairs Minister Matan Kahana said in a statement.

The panel is separately looking at possible culpability among planners of the April observances, which took place under the previous government of Benjamin Netanyahu.

(Writing by Dan Williams, Editing by William Maclean) 

Reference: Reuters: By Dan Williams

Sacred Mysteries: Skulduggery behind the saints of All Souls

A man always said a prayer when walking through a graveyard on his way home, for the repose of the souls of those buried there. The story is told by John Mirk, an author of popular spiritual works in the 14th century. One day, the man was pursued by murderous enemies. But he paused in the graveyard to say his usual prayer: “And anon all the churchyard rose full of bodyes, each one with an instrument in his hand of his craft, and they drove against the enemy. And he was ever after the more devout in praying for souls.”

This attitude matched the aim of the foundation of All Souls College, Oxford, in the 1430s. At this time of year we remember today those who died for their country. So did All Souls’ founder, Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the fellows of his new foundation, who were to say a prayer each morning for the souls of Henry V and the English captains and others who had drunk “the cup of bitter death” in the French wars, as well as for all souls of the faithful departed (which included those of the enemy).

© Alamy St John the Baptist flanked by the four Latin Fathers of the Church in Sir Gilbert Scott's reredos - Alamy

So All Souls chapel was of even more importance than usual for an Oxford College. It had a marvellous wall full of statues – 122 in all – as a backdrop or reredos behind the altar where Mass was said for the dead. Naturally this was broken up at the Reformation and the remnants boarded up to make way for religious murals, first a not excellent Last Judgment by Isaac Fuller, which John Evelyn called “too full of nakeds for a Chapell”, then in 1716 a General Resurrection by James Thornhill.

It was a surprise, wrote Montagu Burrows (the strange author of a history of All Souls), to witness one day in 1871 on a workmen’s scaffold for repairs, plaster scraped away to reveal the medieval inscription Surgite mortui venite ad judicium, “Rise, ye dead and come to judgment”. Instead of a bare wall, Burrows realised there were remains of the medieval reredos “a discovery as unexpected as the sculpture of Nineveh”.

The present-day historian S J D Green pours cold water on Burrows’s claim. His is one of the entertaining and informative chapters in The Reredos of All Souls College, Oxford, which grew from a symposium on the subject. The detail of the graveyard army comes in the chapter by Eamon Duffy.

Professor Green’s chapter, on ecclesiological controversy and expert skulduggery surrounding the restoring the reredos, is a masterclass in All Souls politics. The leader of the “secularist” faction, Charles Henry Robarts, would have happily seen the chapel fall down and the college become shelf space for the Bodleian library, but he was outwitted by the Warden, Francis Leighton, if at the expense of the poor old architect, Henry Clutton, suddenly sacked on the pretext that the college had discovered he had become a Catholic (15 years earlier).

In 1872 the apotheosis of Leighton’s scheme came at a college meeting when the 5th Earl Bathurst, a fellow since 1811, rose up and expressed his wish “to restore the reredos at his own cost”. This was not to be resisted.

Under the direction of Sir Gilbert Scott, previously unthinkable images of saints were raised up – St Thomas of Canterbury and the four Latin Doctors, with St Jerome togged out as a cardinal. The dozens of 1870s figures, sculpted by the young E E Geflowski, seem weak, though it is curious to see John of Gaunt modelled on Lord Salisbury.

What astonished me in this book, though, are pictures of surviving medieval polychromy on the niche canopies, with touches of blue on the nebuly swirls of heaven round the figure of Christ at the summit of the whole achievement. 

Reference: The Telegraph: Christopher Howse

Refugee puppet Little Amal welcomed at St Paul’s Cathedral

Reference: Evening Standard: Luke O'Reilly