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| Llandaff clergy dancing the pilgrim dance after the final Eucharist of their clergy school in Santiago de Compostela Source: Twitter @Gould2Jan |
Jolly June rounded off the Llandaff clergy school in Santiago de Compostela with the tweet: "Michael Sadgrove teaches about pilgrimage and the brilliant story of the Emmaus Road -seeing with hope. Are we dealers in hope?"
Hope for what?
Hope for what?
Chief cheerleader among pilgrim commentators was Pilgrimprogress who looked forward to spending even more money on clergy schools making them annual events.
In a comment on Llandaff clergy school off to a flying start Pilgrimprogress wrote: "Happy to support them and hope they make it an annual event. I note that Michael Sadgrove is leading them in teaching - he's an amazing speaker and they are sure to receive some great input. I recommend his writings.
Later the Cardiff University Anglican Chaplain added a similar tweet: "It has been an absolute delight to have @MichaelSadgrove with us at our clergy school delivering three very thoughtful morning addresses. Like a good meal, you might not remember all that you have been fed, but you certainly know that you have been well fed!"
Later the Cardiff University Anglican Chaplain added a similar tweet: "It has been an absolute delight to have @MichaelSadgrove with us at our clergy school delivering three very thoughtful morning addresses. Like a good meal, you might not remember all that you have been fed, but you certainly know that you have been well fed!"
Amazing speaker he may be but what he has been feeding in some of his writings, particularly on his blog Woolgathering in North East of England, is a million miles from the doctrine of the Holy Catholic Church.
In a gushing endorsement of women's ordination The Ordination of Women as Priests - 25 Years On he wrote: "But I knew on that day that this was a ceremony that would not just live on bathed in a kind of generalised afterglow. I knew that it would be unforgettable in its detail as well. Such as singing 'Be still for the Spirit of the Lord is moving in this place' and, for once, truly recognising that she was."
If 'she' were the only reference to the spirit of the age one might put it down academic argument but it happens to be part of "his friend" June Osborne's revisionist theology, an inclusive church leading to same sex marriage in church
If 'she' were the only reference to the spirit of the age one might put it down academic argument but it happens to be part of "his friend" June Osborne's revisionist theology, an inclusive church leading to same sex marriage in church
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| The Campaign for Equal Marriage in the CofE Source: Twitter |
In a previous comment on Llandaff clergy school off to a flying start Berty wrote of the absurdity of a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela: "Also odd that clergy of a reformed protestant church who sign up to the 39 Articles should go on pilgrimage to a major ‘Romanish’ shrine which is only open during its rebuilding work for pilgrims to venerate the relics of St James? Is that not contrary to Article XXII?
In another blog entry A Day of Wisdom Sadgrove wrote: "I've just got back from leading a study day for clergy and readers in Llandaff Diocese where my friend June Osborne is bishop. They had asked me to reflect with them on wisdom literature in the Hebrew Bible with the tasks of leadership, ministry and preaching in the church today especially in mind."
The whole episode is so incongruous and a colossal waste of money when the study days could have been held in Llandaff as Sadgrove did last year when speaking about leadership.
To cap it all Michael Sadgrove tweeted: "At the conference dinner last night, @BishopJuno is given a standing ovation by her clergy. So well deserved. But remarkable all the same."
Remarkable indeed but as Pilgrimage Fatigue quipped in Caption corner: "What you need to do is engineer a standing ovation at the end of the conference dinner. That'll have them all eating out of my hand."
You can read what Michael Sadgrove thought of the jolly in his glowing blog entry A Pilgrimage to Santiago.
To cap it all Michael Sadgrove tweeted: "At the conference dinner last night, @BishopJuno is given a standing ovation by her clergy. So well deserved. But remarkable all the same."
Remarkable indeed but as Pilgrimage Fatigue quipped in Caption corner: "What you need to do is engineer a standing ovation at the end of the conference dinner. That'll have them all eating out of my hand."
You can read what Michael Sadgrove thought of the jolly in his glowing blog entry A Pilgrimage to Santiago.
Ancient Briton - don’t forget in your round up of the Jolly June’s Jolly the Tweet from @LlandaffDio that £340 was raised for Christian Aid Week by the clergy school. Let’s put this into context. 100 clergy get a freebie to Compostela at the expense of the Pew Sitters. Forgetting the total waste of money on this jolly, there is the embarrassment that the clergy are away during Christian Aid Week. So to show their gratitude, they collectively raise £340. Recall that Jolly June was trying to flog the unused airline tickets to the retired clergy for £350. So the 100 clergy present couldn’t even raise a sum equivalent to ONE ticket! All they could manage was an average of £3.40 each for Christian Aid Week. Well, they can hardly expect the Pew Sitters to cough up for their pet projects if their own sacrificial giving amounts to a miserable £3.40. £30 ahead would have given a respectable £3000 to Christian Aid Week.
ReplyDelete1549.
One wonders if Gerwhine will demonstrate the Pilgrimage Dance while Processing into the Cathedral next time he bothers to show up for a service?
ReplyDeleteJust come across your blog. Your figures are not correct, as there was, I seem to recall, over 700 euros raised also.
ReplyDelete@Rev Peter Lewis - figures came from official Twitter feed of the Diocese of Llandaff. Surely you are not suggesting that Diocesan HQ spin doctors are peddling untruths!!!! However, 700 euros, if that is the figure, raised by those on over subsidised livings is still a pathetic contribution considering the holiday we’ve just paid for you lot!
Delete1549
I don't think £1000 is pathetic. But from what I've read on this blog it is pathetic that people feel they are defending the Gospel when the whole tone of language seems to focus on generating hate. Folk writing here must be immensely hurt and misguided to feel that this is an appropriate way to show that we are part of Christ's body. These comments on the clergy school seem to indicate that it is laudable to generate a venomous culture, which I can only imagine would be commented upon by writers in the New Testament as counter to the Spirit of Christ. Last time I checked my pay slip by the way.it didn't feel over subsidised for my family of 5; which meant a rare and special visit with other clergy to Santiago gave me the gift of being affirmed and strengthened in my ministerial duties of 23 years.
DeleteThe venemous culture to which you refer has been generated by Darth --Insidious with the support of his coven and the gay cabal that have become entrenched at Llandaff Cathedral, aided and abetted by the spineless lickspittles more interested in their careers than preaching the Bible.
DeleteEven Barry's hand-picked first female Dean couldn't stand it for more than 9 weeks.
@Revd Peter Lewis - indeed if all 100 of the delegates were of families of 5, with all the associated responsibilities and commitments, then that £1000 raised would be laudable. However, that is not the case. Many of them happily post on their social media sites reports of their frequent foreign holidays and excursions to all sorts of events. Some are supported by very well paid partners in a variety of professions. Many parishes support way and beyond the expected giving. Just keep your ear open at a deanery or diocesan conference and you will hear of cruise ship holidays, safari trips, excursions to Rome to top on finest vestments, the purchase of this lithograph or that rare painting, the acquisition of that antique, and even the purchase of a lovely little property in the country ‘as a bolt hole’! Yes, Peter, like the laity there is a spectrum of wealth amongst the clergy. There has always been the poor parson at one end and the greedy Vicar of Bray at the other. Taking all of that into account, much more than £1000 for Christian Aid Week should have been raised by 100 clergy. As for the comments on this blog? As have been pointed out on numerous occasions this is about the only source of information about the Church in Wales free from spin, and the only output of free unhindered speech. It has provided an open window on many of the scandals and corruptions within the CinW.
Delete1549.
Spending £100,000+ on teaching you to prance the Spanish Okie Cokie in Christian Aid Week is obviously money well spent.
DeleteIn the meantime Cardiff's streets remain littered with the tents and sleeping bags of the homeless and hungry.
But if you're feeling suitably "refreshed" Peter, that's just fine and dandy.
Today's odds on Llandaff Clergy Christian Aid donations versus other expenditure.
DeleteGiving < Drinks on the plane : 3-1
Giving < Postcards & stamps: 2-1
Giving < Vino at dinner : 10-1
Giving < Souvenirs/Tat : 12-1
Giving < Pink Gin : 15-1
Giving < Rum : 15-1
Giving < Relics/Icons : 8-1
Giving < Duty Free en route to Cardiff : 50-1
Giving < Gerwhine's latest antique acquisition : 100-1
@Revd Peter Lewis since you now are a contributor to this blog and I'm sure you would object if I lumped you in with those who undoubtedly use unsavoury language on here and tarred you with the same brush.
DeletePlease don't label everyone here a hatemonger just because they use this blog to express their dismay at the heterodoxy and poor management in the CiW at times. Its unfair and it's a lazy argument.
As a newbie to this highly esteemed Blog (and rare source of truth in Llandaff particularly) you can be given a little leeway for a short time.
DeleteHowever, if you'll trouble yourself to read backwards through the various threads you will discover that you and your colleagues are by no means unanimous in this matter.
Indeed, one of your colleagues was so outraged by the profligacy of the June's junket, he declared his intention to return his Easter offering as a means of reimbursing the costs of him being forced to attend against his will.
What did you do with your Easter offering Peter?
Somehow I doubt it went to Christian Aid but feel free to correct me.
Gosh! These comments really are calculated to be ungenerous and unkind. Why on earth would a stranger feel they can make a decision on my personal giving to charity? Only because, on reading back into the threads, I see this is the toxic culture of the contributors. I'm leaving the discussion and not returning. Ps I've never had an Easter collection in 23 years because I asked the parish to keep the money... adios y buen Camino.
Delete@Rev Peter Lewis
DeleteYou present an argument entirely indicative of what may be described as narcissistic ministry (a ubiquitous model of ministry within the Church-in-Wales). This argument is premised upon your "gift of being affirmed and strengthened in MY ministerial duties". Your ministry is not about you - it is about those souls to whom God has given you their Cure. The Apostles, many of whom were martyred for the faith, were never afforded this "gift of being affirmed" save that of bearing witness to the faith through the salvific mechanism of the Eucharist - a salvific mechanism which led inexorably to their own personal sacrifice. Similarly, the Apostles were not afforded the luxury of a monthly payslip - or the relative safety of a Vicarage. Whilst "Bishop" June squanders the parish share on the "gift of being affirmed" Christ dies homeless and hungry at her Palace gates. Consider offering the gift of Christ's affirmation through feeding the hungry and offering a warm place to sleep as you pass all those who suffer on the streets of Cardiff (and in every Welsh town and city) this Christian Aid week. I am sure the money squandered on "Carry on Compostela" would have made a huge difference to offering Christ's unequivocal and scriptural affirmation of the poor and dispossessed. I apologise in advance for my observations which will no doubt seem hurtful - however, we cannot ignore the growing hurtful social and economic injustices (especially child poverty) here in Wales that are the antitheses of every Christian vocation. Christ's affirmation always looked outwards and never inwards - always from below and never from the top.
Chrysostom
Your dismal self-centred contribution will not be missed but serves well to demonstrate the fundamental underlying problems with the Church in Wales today. Little wonder congregants are disappearing by the thousands every year.
Delete@Rev Peter Lewis
DeleteI see no evidence of any stranger making "a decision" concerning your personal giving to charity.
I do see someone posing you a question, to which your reply is that you have returned your Easter Offering to your Parish for the last 23 years.
Highly commendable and very generous of you I'm sure, especially in light of your earlier claim "Last time I checked my pay slip by the way.it didn't feel over subsidised for my family of 5;".
If you can afford to forgo your annual Easter bonus, your payslip must be adequately subsidised after all.
But your claims raise another issue Peter.
The Archbishop's Press Officer went on public several years ago stating that Easter Offerings had been stopped in the Llandaff Diocese which is why John Lewis was paid some £4,400 and the following year Janet Henderson got squat.
So are you or Anna Morrell lying to us Peter?
You can't both be telling the truth, so which is it?
Well said, AB! I did not understand why some of your contributors were so enthusiastic about the speaker. Sheep mentality, I suppose.lo
ReplyDeleteRob
Was this the kind of drivel being promoted in Compostela to push forward the desired changes for same sex marriage?
ReplyDeletehttps://viamedia.news/2019/05/17/does-the-bible-really-say-anything-at-all-about-homosexuality-as-we-understand-it-today/?fbclid=IwAR30HYyQ1o6SITBeDntoBKTMh2abEfIrpWD0BTuUl1JblwClabNPcx_A1jM
Rev Peter Lewis says 'when the whole tone of language seems to focus on generating hate. ' Spot on, I see only hardworking and committed people who are generally doing the right thing in our small community running a whole range of services including a Food Bank and Drop In with other Churches. Elsewhere in Wales there are fantastic examples of Family Centres, street pastors, projects for the homeless. People here should read the IICSA reports on the Church of England to see where the inward looking clericalism ends - and the insulting way that women clergy and the lay people (pew sitters) are described is terrible - let alone Welsh people who are Moslems. Most voluntary organisations are suffering a steep loss in support from anybody under the age of 55 and the causes are complicated but I do not think that reviving a sort of 1950s clericalism is the answer, maybe getting together with other Churches in smaller communities is the way forward? Thanks Peter Lewis for having the courage to take on these posters.
ReplyDeleteADFOEDD. Perhaps Rev Lewis then could be asked how many thousands of pounds the Compostela outing cost the Church, inevitably to the detriment of the causes you mention. Or am I 'generating hate' and need to be 'taken on'?
DeleteLW
LW: remember that anyone who opposes the liberal agenda is 'generating hate'. You MUST agree with the liberals or you will be insulted, called a bigot, and probably sacked
DeletePP. Surely the clergy school cost will be published in the accounts. They cannot have come from the evangelism fund as Llandaff has not bid for any scheme to date. U dwr the freedom of information I assume one can obtain the data, as its use of public funds.
ReplyDeleteThe Freedom of Information act does not apply to The Church - as Dean John soon found out after the Llandaff 'election'.
ReplyDeleteOne small caveat, MO. The FoI Act DOES apply to the CinW (or any other organisation that holds data) if you are personally a 'material subject' of the data held. That is how Jeffrey John got his hands on those redacted emails that blocked-out Shirley's and Gregorius's names, but revealed both bishops in their true, unguarded colours. Not very edifying. But hardly surprising.
DeletePP. Under the GDPR 2018. The Church does have to provide such information. Charities have to be transparent. Only if the information can cause harm to an individual or the charity is the rule. In the case of a closed meeting like a college this would be the case to not provide for the causal effect on the outcome (the case of JJ being under this rule) . Accounts are for all charities to be in the public domain. Therefore, good reason would need to be give to prohibit a member obtaining such record, or indeed the wider public. As the transparency could not be seen as to cause harm, as the monies spent were from public contribution.
ReplyDeleteAsk the Bishop directly how much the plane charter was, and how much the accommodation was.
ReplyDeleteThis will give a minimum figure. This is information readily available which we have a right to know.
bishop.llandaff@churchinwales.org.uk
LW
So let me get this right...you have been accusing and slandering a diocese for misuse of funds, but you have no actual idea where the money came from? Whether it was raised/donated for this purpose? Sounds about right for this blog - totally I'll- informed, and on the back foot. Last Sophia.
ReplyDeleteLast Sophia. This is a simple request for info. Pls tell if you know something we don't. The perfectly fair assumption is that it came from the DBF because the Bishop herself said they had 'cleared it'. Why not just give us the figure?
DeleteLW
LW, I appreciate that asking the Bishop herself seems like an obvious and reasonable thing to do. The problem is she doesn't reply to letters that touch sore nerves. Ask anyone who has contacted her about the St Teilo's Resource Church debacle. She may have apologised for 'any misunderstanding' at the Cardiff Deanery Conference a few days before she jetted off to not-so-sunny Spain; but she will we never admit that her behaviour was inappropriate - or that Peggy the Pilate was the one who landed her in the liquid fertiliser in the first place.
ReplyDeleteTalking of which, no wonder everyone's dancing in the photo you've provided. They're so happy that this is the last they'll see of Peggy. You watch. Just before her sabbatical is drawing to a close, they'll announce her retirement. It can't come soon enough.
In God's name why does the lump of lard need a sabbatical?
DeleteThe only thing of note she's ever done was to wreck the Llandaff Cathedral Choir and that required no effort on her part at all.
At the first meeting of the St Teilo's Development Group which took place on May 2nd, issues were raised directly with the Bishop of Llandaff and the Archdeacon of Llandaff about the proposed change of use at St Teilo's Church - giving away their church to the evangelical Holy Trinity Brompton church.
Deletehttp://www.saast.cymru/statement.htm
"Bishop June started the meeting by saying that she wished to work with us to find solutions, and that this 'would not be done coercively'." In other words b****r off or something similar.
The ears in the walls report St Teilo's Church needs £200,000 worth of work doing on it.
DeleteCaiaphas won't give the existing congregation a penny towards their needs.
Magically however, part of the deal to entice Holy Trinity Brompton to take on the building was to be a £200,000 grant out of the £10 million sloshing around from the RB handed to Andy Pandy to spend.
Rumour control suggests that Peggy the Pilate is taking the blame for the St Teilo's debacle and that she who must not be named has realised at last that the Pilate is a lying old trout!
DeleteTook her long enough if true.
DeleteHow long will it take her to rumble the dud in the Deanery?
Having fun on the road to Hell.....so sad. So few European Catholics understand Anglicanism.
ReplyDelete