Listening to the Bishop

We had a ‘Greater Chapter’ meeting last night, where the speaker was the Bishop of Norwich.

The Greater Chapter consists of all the active priests – stipendiary, non-stipendiary and Ordained Local Ministers – in our deanery, plus all the retired priests and all the Licensed Readers. A ‘Licensed Reader’ is like a trained lay preacher.

We have a Greater Chapter once a year in the evening, to allow all who work full-time to come. Usually about half turn up, but when the speaker is the Diocesan Bishop there’s always a full house. Honestly it’s not about wanting to be noticed by the Bishop. Honestly.

Actually he’s a really good speaker, very down-to-earth and with a good sense of humour. He spoke about church attendance through the ages and why the Church of England as an Established church is a bit different to other churches – we’re there for everyone, whether they attend services or not. He told us that in the 1851 census, people were asked about church-going. When the replies came in, the powers that be were so shocked to discover that only about 50% of the population attended church that the question was never again asked in a census until 2001. So habits haven’t changed all that much – there are still more people attending church on a wet February Sunday than belong to all the political parties combined.

That of course, brought us on to the present state of Parliament (he’s a Lord Bishop so sits in the House of Lords). He said that the atmosphere there since the Expenses Scandal is terrible – full of fear and suspicion – and that there’s a huge loss of confidence amongst MPs.

Can’t say I felt hugely sympathetic towards MPs. I’m so sick of hearing, “I haven’t broken any rules, therefore I haven’t done anything wrong.” They don’t seem to appreciate how morally wrong it is to take huge sums of money for their plasma screen TVs from the public during a recession when other people are having homes repossessed and don’t know how they’re going to pay their bills.

Anyway, it was a good evening for my final Chapter meeting but a bit sad saying farewell.

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