MADRID. A city drowning in a sea of popespeak and piety. The streets, jammed with the faithful, the curious and those who just fancied a day off work to swear at a foreign dignitary in glorious Spanish.
His Holiness, the man in the big white hat, is blessing the masses (and by masses, I mean the crowds, though the liturgical ones are probably also getting a look-in). Meanwhile, back in Blighty, the Anglican hierarchy has been spotted doing something that looks suspiciously like unity. Yes, you heard it here first.
The Church of England, that grand old dame of compromise and lukewarm tea, is apparently pondering a message of togetherness. Or as I call it: ‘Let’s all pretend we don’t secretly want to throw holy water at each other.’ I imagine the synod’s brainstorming session went something like this: ‘Right chaps, the Pope’s in Madrid turning water into Rioja, what’s our move?
I know! We’ll issue a statement. A nice, vague, we-love-everyone statement.
That’ll show ‘em.’ And so they will. A perfectly crafted piece of ecclesiastical gymnastics that manages to say absolutely nothing while implying everything.
It’ll be stuffed with phrases like ‘shared heritage’ and ‘common purpose’ and ‘let’s not mention the divorce, the wives, or the treasure chests.’ But let’s be real. Unity?
The only thing uniting these two ecclesiastical juggernauts is the shared terror of empty pews and the rising popularity of Sunday lie-ins. The Pope gets his mass crowds, the Anglicans get their comfy assurances that their God is still in the top five. Meanwhile, the rest of us are left to marvel at the sheer, glorious farce of it all.
So raise a glass (or a chalice, if you’ve got one handy) to the greatest show on earth: organised religion, still selling tickets after 2,000 years. Next stop, Canterbury. Bring your own wine.
