Christmas greetings 2023

Duccio di Buoninsegna, The Nativity with the Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel (1308-11)

Wishing you a Joyous Christmas

and a Happy New Year!

Caption corner 22 December 2023

Spot the Christmas tree!                                                                                                               Source; X (formerly Twitter)

As usual publishable captions will appear as comments.

Church in Wales excesses

The Catholic Church in Wales                 Dioceses                       The Anglican Church in Wales

The Archbishop of Cardiff, the Most Rev Mark O’Toole, who is also the Bishop of Menevia, has announced that he wants to merge two of the three Catholic dioceses in Wales which would result in just two dioceses covering the whole of Wales, one in the North and one in the South.

According to Wikipedia the estimated Catholic population of the Diocese of Menevia is 26,266 out of a total population of 788,550 (3.3%). Googling indicates that the Catholic population in the Archdiocese of Cardiff was 132,450 in 2021.

Current Church in Wales attendance figures are a matter of speculation since they are no longer reported but the latest membership  figure for the whole of Wales published in Wikipedia was 45,759 in 2016 compared with 91,247 in 1996. The average Sunday attendance of Anglicans over 18 in 2016 had fallen to 26,110.

Ignoring the recommendations in the 2012 Church in Wales Review, the ever shrinking Anglican Church in Wales still maintains six dioceses with six diocesan bishops, deans, numerous archdeacons and a growing army of administrators to assist the bishops.

Church in Wales bishops are out of control. They have abandoned the Christian faith for the excesses of secularism and have left many faithful Anglicans with no sacramental or pastoral provision. 

A wicked end to a once great Church.

Caption corner 15 December 2023

Retiring First Minister of Wales with the Archbishop of Wales                                                            Source: Church in Wales

As usual publishable captions will appear as comments.

Sacred cow

"The world's most famous football show. Gary Lineker with the big names
 and the big games from the Premier League." Source: BBC One

The government has announced that the current TV licence fee of £159 will increase by £10.50 to £169.50 from next April, a rise of 6.6% - but less than the BBC had anticipated.

The BBC must find £400m in annual savings by 2027/28. In 2023 as part of a drive to save money 1,000 fewer hours of new TV programmes. 

Hit in the cuts is a trimmed down Newsnight, one of the more serious programmes among the BBC's deteriorating standards as it seeks to appeal to the lowest common denominator rather than educate people in accordance with its mission to "act in the public interest, serving all audiences through the provision of impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain”.

Soccer coverage, by contrast, goes on and on and on with Match of the Day taking centre stage. 

Earlier this year it was reported that BBC currently pay £211million to the Premier League for the rights to show the highlights programme every weekend on Saturday night and a repeat on Sunday morning.

Last month the Mail Online reported that the BBC were preparing to open contract talks with Match of the Day presenter, Gary Lineker whose £1.35million-a-year contract expires when the BBC’s existing deal for Premier League highlights runs out at the end of next season,

Apparently the corporation are eager to secure their top-paid presenter despite reports that he has "continued to talk politics, backing pro-Palestine marches since the terrorist attacks in Israel" and "supporting protesters’ right to hold events in London on Armistice Day".

It is a travesty that those of us who have no interest in soccer, and even less in the private opinions of the BBC's overpaid presenters, are forced to pay inflated licence fees for content directed to a specific audience requiring an additional multitude of pundits, reporters and sports correspondents.

The Chief Executive of the English Basketball Association was right to question the amounts of television rights money spent on Soccer as the BBC.

They should let it go or move soccer to a separate pay channel.

Postscript [11.12.2023]

Gary Lineker criticised over Rwanda comments in impartiality row

Overpaid, over indulged and licence payers are funding it. 

Pope Francis evicts "enemy" Cardinal Burke

The rumours have been confirmed. Pope Francis evicts his US critic, Cardinal Raymond Burke, from the Vatican. 

A useful commentary of events leading to the eviction of the pope's "enemy" is provided at the beginning of the above podcast video.

Pope Francis has attracted much criticism from commentators. Traditionalist Anglicans have looked on in bemusement as he appears to be guiding the Catholic Church along the path to ruin, the path already trod by the Episcopal Church in the US, the Church of England and the Church in Wales, among others.

Having sown the seeds of hope for change among revisionists, the Vatican is trying to draw a line on women’s ordination and homosexuality in new letter to German bishops.

That will not stop revisionists from pecking away as they seek to make the Church conform to the pattern of this world rather than be transformed as the Anglican Church in the West has witnessed 

What hope can there be for a Church when Christians who practice their faith by obedience to the word rather than apostates are regarded as the enemy?

Archbishop's Rwanda judgement

After the arrival of the refugees from Ukraine at the Polish-Ukrainian border crossing in Medyka, they wait for a place
 in one of the buses that will take them to large sites or collective shelters. Source: Westport Presbyterian Church

The Archbishop of Wales, who represents less than 1% of the population of Wales, has welcomed the judgement on Rwanda asylum plan.

In doing so, the Provincial News item included the above photograph without attribution. 

The photo has nothing to do with the Rwanda judgement. It actually shows refugees from Ukraine arriving at the Polish-Ukrainian border crossing in Medyka in 2022 according to its source, Westport Presbyterian Church. 

The picture was used to illustrate the plight of Ukrainian refugees in a Church Mission Project in the United States.

This photo published by the BBC more accurately illustrates the problem.

More than 100,000 people have come to the UK by crossing the English Channel in small boats since 2018.

That is more than the population of Rochdale.

The cost of housing asylum seekers in hotels costs around £8 million a day. 

Government projections put the cost of dealing with illegal migrants plan could cost £6bn over two years.

A solution needs to be found but it is unlikely to come from the Church in Wales.

In 2022 the archbishop said he would not make any apologies for pointing out the "deficits" within the government's Rwanda policy. "It's the duty of all people, Christians and those of no faith to speak up for those who are marginalised..and for what is right and proper."

The archbishop would be better employed considering the plight of the many Anglicans he and the bench have marginalised in the Church in Wales by reneging on the promised twin integrities and leading the remainder into secularism.