Farts

on Fire

Excitement is BUILDING!
Southwark
Cathedral is to be
knocked down and
rebuilt to a design
based on
children's
drawings. Bishop
Christopher
praised the
scheme, which has
involved over 14
Year 7 students
from across the
diocese, as an
important initiative
helping young
people to learn key
skills in masonry
and ecclesiastical
architecture. The
Bishop will choose

the winning design

after a special
Eucharist service
next month in a
building site
(formerly the John
Harvard Chapel).
Designs submitted
include a series of
poorly-drawn
squares, a dog,
and a 'cathedral on
wheels', which will
be driven around
the diocese on the
back of a big truck
reminding us of
diversity and our
country's
dependence on
fossil fuels.

All the sycophantic

pictures of Bishop
Christopher you
could wish for...

A vibrant new Cathedral for a vibrant

new age... if you dont like this idea
you must really hate children...

The Bouncing
Bishop... see page 16
Type to enter text

The view from the

Mosh Pit with Bishop
Christopher... see p. 19

The Bishops of Southwark and London perform their annual ceremonial arm
wrestle on the border of their great dioceses (or one great diocese and London)

Bishop Christopher
came to our house to
watch Game of
Thrones... see page
128

Unfairer Shares - where your money goes

Did you know the Diocese receives 80% of its income directly from parishes?
How each 1 of our income will be spent in 2016
31p
29p
14p
14p
9p
8p
7p
6p
5p
4p
3p
2p
1p

N.B. if you are a priest

bobbins
7p6p5p4p
3p
dont forget that YOU
2p
nonsense
1p
18p
cost more than all this
repairing damage caused by bats
put together - it costs
subscription fees to 'Save the Bats'
600,000 per year to
9p
31p
hassocks
keep a priest in a parish
(no exaggeration)
cassocks
14p
unnecessarily printing things in colour
14p
revised copies of Hymns Old & New with all the swearwords taken out
29p
big houses for people at diocesan central office
settlement payments for miscellaneous clergy wrongdoing
tealights
N.B. the Champagne served at Diocesan finance meetings does NOT come
taize
from your funds - thats the 20% of Diocesan income from other sources.
mission

RURAL DEAN RETIRES

made senior member
of the West Wippering
Team Ministry
(WWTM) by mistake
last October.
His farewell party took
place yesterday in the
church hall. The
Bishop of Southwark
gave thanks on behalf
of the parish for the
Revd Eels' many
months of service,
while parishioners
presented him with a
special cake depicting
a crotchety old priest
upsetting a small child
at a wedding.
The Revd Lambert
Eels, CBE, vicar of St
Amy's, Beesbottom,
has announced that he
intends to retire at the
end of this sentence to
spend more time with
his collection of 'Loose
Women' memorabilia.
The 84-year-old was

Afterwards, Revd Eels

amused parishioners
with an entertaining
account of the crisis of
faith that had caused
him to abandon his
living. He told them:
"after many years of
agonising struggle
over these issues, I felt
I could just no longer

believe in a
unknowable Ground of
Being that is both true
but unreal. As such, I
realised I could no
longer in good faith
work in the Diocese of
Southwark."
The Revd Eels is to be
received into the
Personal Ordinariate of
Our Lady of
Walthamstow, an
initiative set up by
Catholic leaders (the
Bishop of Edmonton)
for disaffected
Anglicans south of the
river who want to work
in North London but
still maintain some
Anglican traditions.
Clergy will be allowed
to marry, wear
vestments not made
out of net curtains, and
have the traditional
handful of tealights on
the altar.

ADVERT:

CATFORD
CHRISTIAN
POWERPOINT
COLLEGE
(CCPC)
We now offer a number
of one-day training
courses in the skills
needed to succeed in
the fast growing area of
worship song
PowerPoint slide
background photos.
Learn how to take a
really good picture of a
lake or stars or misty
mountain that could
provide a background
for classic song lyrics
by Matt Redman or
Hillsong. Advanced
classes include how to
use a blue filter and
'superimposing a
picture of a cross:
theory, practice, and
the paste function'.

MONKS RULE(S)!

A view from

CHESSUN
DORMA
The Bishop of
Southwark has
appointed twelve new
Cardinals in a
consistory held in
London Bridge last
Thursday.
The Revd Nigel Nobs,
Diocesan Director of
Synergy and Improving,
was the first to be given
a red hat by Pope
Christopher in a formal
service at Southwark
Cathedral led by the
Dean of Southwark,
Monsignor Andrew
Nunn.
Cardinal Nobs will be
given the title of
Cardinal-priest of San
Paolo Maggiore, a rural

Tuscan church just

outside Croydon. By
tradition, he will be one
of those entitled to cast
a vote in the election of
SPAs and Lay Readers.
Twelve other members
of the Trinity House
office staff have been
elevated to the
Cardinalate, while Dr
Sue Greystache,
Diocesan Director of
Lay Things (with
Special Responsibility
for Those Who Are Not
Priests) has been
crowned Queen
Empress.
The Bishop said: "It is
good to have the
opportunity to reward
the hard work of the
people who have put
the diocese in the state
that it's in."

A cutting-edge new
monastic community
for young men and
women in the Diocese
has been launched by
the Bishop of
Southwark.
The Community of St
Brenda, based at a
brand new purposebuilt dome just outside
Catford, will consist of
28 men and women
aged between 22 and
23. They will not take
vows, live together,
have a rule of life, or
even necessarily
attend church, but in
other ways will be
exactly like a
traditional monastic
community.
The Bishop said:
"Everyone has one of
those chill-out CDs of
Gregorian chant set to
minimalist beats, but
few people realise that
listening to them is
itself a form of church.

The same is true of

just having a quiet sit
down, which is
actually the very heart
of monasticism."
The community will
support itself by
means of an
enormous diocesan
grant as well as a
modern twist on an old
ancient practice:
growing plants and
herbs, which will be
used not to make
beer, but modern
'legal highs', to be
distributed through a
nearby corner shop.
If you are aged
between 22 and 23,
live in the Catford
area, and think being
a monk is something
that would sound
vaguely interesting for
about five minutes,
you can apply online
at:www.geocities.com
/southwark1998/
Brenda.htm
ADVERT:

REVERSIBLE
CASSOCKS!

The latest trip at the expense of the dioceses is a Bishops Retreat to the Moon.
In some ways it works out cheaper than all the trips to Zimbabwe

Save and much

needed vestry space
with a new reversible
cassock. White on the
inside, black on the
outside, and 100%
reversible, the reversible
cassock/alb is suitable
for any occasion: from a
meditative service of
tealights and celtic
whalesong to a pretend
19th century catholic
mass. One size fits all.
100% wipeable PVC.
When ordering please
indicate the number of
slits up the backside.

GIVE THEM
THE SACK!
Tourists in London Bridge
might have thought they
were watching TV's 'The
Game of Thrones' last
week, as young people in
the Diocese of Southwark
enjoyed reviving a classic
medieval tradition - with a
twist!
'Cross-Aides' is a new
Fresh Expression started
by the Revd Gammon
Hams, the bishop's
newly-appointed Canon
Noveltist and Gimmicker.
Revd Hams had noticed
how traditional church
services often struggled
to interest young men - a
very different situation
from the Middle Ages. He
said:

And it was a time when

young people, particularly
young men, were a lot
more engaged with being
church than they are now.
Who better to learn urban
ministry from than Pope
Urban himself?"
Cross-Aides met for the
first time last Tuesday,
with a session titled
'Living by the S-Word!' (ie
Southwark). Bishop
Christopher was present
for the launch, dressed in
traditional episcopal
dress of armour and mail.
After a few warm words
of welcome he mounted a
coal-black steed with

"Obviously there was a

lot of bad stuff back then
and no-one wants to eat
a weevil biscuit or catch
the buboes - but there
was also a lot of really
interesting ecumenical
dialogue taking place.

Urban Ministry

flaring nostrils and eyes

of fire, and proceeded to
lead a delegation of
armed horsemen across
the bridge into the
Diocese of London, to
which they then laid
waste. Among the havoc,
three listed buildings
were taken, including a
historic Wren church
which at the time was
hosting a clergy study
day on the spirituality of
George Herbert, which
was subsequently put to
the sword.
After three hours of
prayerful fighting and
building community,
worshippers accepted a
hasty truce brokered by
Mayor Boris Johnson and
returned to Southwark
Cathedral bearing with
them 12 gold

Cuddle Church
St Castons in Purley has created
a fresh expression: Cuddle
Church. Messy Church was a
bit too sticky and rather full of
health and safety hazards for this
community so they needed a
clean and fluffy way to
encourage more children and
add to their declining
congregation. The Mothers
Union have come up with a novel
solution to knit some new

members to sit on the pews to

increase their numbers and to
provide all who come an
opportunity for a holy snuggle.
Our family of knitty friends are
the most peaceable weve ever
had, said Nora one of the
enthusiastic creators of the
knitted congregation. We have
never attracted so many Yarn
People announced their
delighted Vicar, Rev

candlesticks, 30 lbs of
other precious metals, 86
hassocks, 4 vergers, and
a statue by Henry Moore.
The service finished with
a shared meal of food
pillaged from the smoking
ruins of Marks & Spencer.
A service of thanksgiving,
with a triumphal
procession of booty and
captives, is due to take
place at the Cathedral
next month, with a sung
Te Deum and sermon by
the Dean of Southwark,
the Very Revd Andrew
Nunn. The next service of
Cross-Aides will happen
on the third Sunday in
May, when there will be
an advance into the
unprotected eastern flank
of the Willesden
Episcopal Area. All
welcome.

Threadmore. Cuddle Church are

currently planning their next
challenge to knit themselves a
curate.

'BE EXCELLENT TO EACH OTHER'

An exciting new initiative encouraging people in
the Diocese to be slightly less twattish has been
announced by the Bishop of Southwark.
'Be excellent to each other' was the theme of an
eight-day conference held in Jerusalem after a
tour of the Holy Land led by the Dean of
Southwark, Archimandrite Andrew Nunn.
Bishop Christopher chaired the dialogue between
diverse senior figures, stakeholders, and other
well-paid people attending the jolly.
He said: "Being excellent to each other is the only
sustainable foundation for an equitable and
transparent society. So much poverty and climate
change is caused simply by neglect of this
essential message by communities suffering from
value mismanagement. Too often people are just
c*nts to each other, when (as we hope to show
through a 14m investment in meetings) they
shouldn't.
"'Be excellent to each other' is also a key theme of
the 1989 American science film 'Bill and Ted's
Excellent Adventure', which, with its sequel, is
central to our diocese's long-term planning for the
future.
"Although, admittedly, we never see it on screen,
we may surmise the eponymous chrononaughts
obtained the insight through synthesising the
wisdom of the diverse historical figures they meet,
including Socrates, Joan of Arc and, my personal
favourite, Napoleon."

Lenten Lunches at Trinity House... As Clergy jobs are

being cut the Bishops and archdeacons demonstrate
that we are all in this together by reducing the
number of courses from nine to seven!

Are YOU tired of the same old meetings at Trinity House?

Want to deepen your spiritual experience during a pointless activity?
Need something to restore your faith in the ecclesiastical hierarchy?
Try playing our exclusive Fridge How long will it take before the Trinity House Staff tell you how busy
they are sweepstake.
All you have to do is attend your meeting and choose a time:
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5 minutes (you obviously talk too much and it took 5 minutes for them to get a word in)
30 minutes (youre meeting may actually be important to them)
45 minutes (they may have worked in a parish once and recoginse you may be busy sometimes too)
50 minutes (no member of Trinity House staff has ever gone longer than 50 minutes without saying
how busy they are)
BONUS POINTS if they spend longer talking about how busy they are than whatever it is you went to
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