Costa Compostela

As the above letter indicates, there are 'a few' surplus seats left on the plane the Church in Wales' DBF has chartered to fly the bishop of Llandaff and her clergy team on a 'pilgrimage' to the Roman Catholic shrine of Santiago de Compostela. No doubt most of the walking involved will be to the bar and back.

Anyone wishing to avail themselves of this magnanimous offer should note their pariah status. This is not an invitation to join the clergy school. In fact those wishing to benefit from the 'mini pilgrimage' are cautioned against booking accommodation at Hospederia de San Martin de Pinario.

One can see the sense of this from jolly June's perspective. She will not welcome outsiders injecting a sense of reason into the proceedings, neither will she want any witnesses to the après school activities, particularly from retired clergy who may have a somewhat jaundiced view from her perspective of the direction the modern Church in Wales is taking.

What does this caper cost? If 45 surplus seats @ £350 per seat are taken up, that nets £15,750 to offset the cost which has not been revealed but a guesstimate of the total cost is possible.

The Hospederia has 81 rooms. Taking two to a room that equals a maximum of 162 places plus around 45 surplus plane places

Llandaff diocese lists over 200 clergy, some of whom are retired. Wikipedia shows 105 paid clergy. With non-stipendiary clergy  let us assume a 200 seat plane at £350 per seat. That amounts to £70,000 just for the flight. Adding estimates for food and accommodation the total cost is likely to be in excess of £100,000.

From the Llandaff site: "This regular clergy school, in May 2019, will be used to train and equip priests to teach and lead pilgrimage in their own communities."

But there are already regular parish pilgrimages in the diocese, particularly to Walsingham. A youth pilgrimage from Llandaff to Walsingham in 2017 cost a mere £140 in comparison.

A project is underway to revive the historic Llandaff to Penrhys pilgrimage route running from Cardiff to the the top of the Rhondda without an expensive jolly to encourage it.

There is a cruel irony in jolly June's jolly to Santiago de Compostela. From James 1:27, "Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this: ... to keep oneself unstained by the world", something the bench of bishops signally fails to do, thus lurching the Church into one crisis after another. Better the six bishops went and stayed there.