Just down the road from us is Canterbury with it's Cathedral. Within the grounds of Canterbury Cathedral are some of the oldest Christian buildings in the UK; it is of course the seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury who is also the top banana in the Anglican Community worldwide. Okay so far so good...so, was in Rome a few weeks ago and as always after the queues die down around 5Pm you can generally just walk straight into St Peters Basilica and ...well...despite the number of times I've seen it there is still that gobsmacking moment when you walk in and witness an interior which will make you weep...it is without doubt stunning...simply magnificent! In the local paper today was the following article... ....so the thing that finally struck home was the fact that the seat of the Worldwide Anglican Community the seat of Anglican Christianity is just so penniless that it needs to run beer festivals in it's ground?? I mean don't get me wrong I'll go to it.....it's simply just the fact that Canterbury and in fact Canterbury Cathedral in particular....it just looks rather shabby and decidely dejected and so run down and...well....just marking time really until presumably like a lot of the shops in the market square outside, it will close it's doors? So there was a sort of comparison thing going on in my mind when I read the article. From morning until late afternoon, I've never not seen long queues of people snaking round St Peters Square waiting patiently to get through security and into the Basilica. Whereas, at Canterbury Cathedral the only queue is at the ticket shop because the machine can't connect to the wi-fi again. And whereas poor old Canterbury Cathedral is a bit forlorn and bit dejected and only hoping for salvation from the money spent by drunks and party goers paying to use it's premises...not to pray or stare in wonder at the art and treasures that...well....are not inside unlike St. Peters Basilica which doesn't need to have drunks and ravers to maintain the building!! The other thing that struck me was that Canterbury Cathedral is basically merely a metaphor for Kent as a whole...or perhaps the South East of England even...but more probably the whole of the UK? It's dejected and sorry state is just symptomatic of the UK as a whole I suppose...a microcosm of just how shabby and worn out and pot holed and under funded and falling apart we are. https://www.kentonline.co.uk/canter...tival-to-be-held-in-cathedral-grounds-301885/
It costs 10 euros to use the elevator at St. Peters. 17 pounds will get you a year's pass to Canterbury. 2 trips to St. peters costs as much as a year at Canterbury. Perhaps they should raise their prices.
.....thing is though.....it doesn't cost a bean to get into St. Peter's...you just queue to get through security...and once you do get in mate...its stunning. Canterbury on the other hand...I mean it's nice inside...there's a lot of history but it's pretty austere really...a bit dowdy...worn....that was my point it's like the UK in general...slowly crumbling with no funds left to prop it up.... Sad but that's my thoughts....
I don't think the billion dollars a year the Church of England takes in puts it on the edge of bankruptcy, but they certainly don't compare to the Catholic Church's $90B endowment either. The UK as a whole is being dragged down by Brexit, yet they are still too snotty to try to forge an aggressive free trade agreement with the US because egad some chicken producers use bleach. It probably doesn't help that their parliament consists mostly of members who are more worried about trivial local matters than matters of state.
The CofE takes in Billions a year? Is that right? I wonder what are their outgoings are then!? I mean I've not been into a single church that doesn't have an appeal going for essential repairs... I have no idea what Brexit is doing to be honest....it is what it is....its done...I voted for it. But, like all choices there are good aspects and bad...does the good outweigh the bad....nobody really has a clue because these things take decades to shake out. Sure the people from the various camps will hail and wail the good and the bad news but it's all a game....did we do the right thing...I mean on balance I think so???? But the country was going down hill long before Brexit....
We had plans to visit Canterbury Cathedral and the town a few years ago on our last visit to London. We wanted to take a train to Canterbury and then onto the White Cliffs of Dover. Unfortunately a storm had washed out a section of tracks on the route so we had to cancel. We may go back to the UK this summer but I was thinking of spending some time in York and visiting the surrounding area.
A lot of the billion is reinvested in its endowment to grow future returns. More detail about their finances at https://etonomics.com/2022/09/09/an-investigation-into-the-finances-of-the-church-of-england/
