by Paul Kerensa
It felt daunting to address this roomful of professional preachers. No doubt they’d be friendly and supportive, but they’d also be used to public speaking and probably not be afraid of a heckle or two. How do you put down a vicar?[25] Standard putdowns wouldn’t work:
‘Hey, I don’t come to where you work and ... read out the banns of marriage.’
‘Yeah, I remember my first ... glass of communion wine.’
‘Where’d you learn to whisper, a monastery? ... Oh you did.’
There’s a strange occurrence at some church gigs, whereby on any ‘dodgier’ jokes, the punters look first to the vicar to see if he’s laughing. If he is, they might join in. If he’s not, they silently agree with him and take against the comedian. We’ve all been there. You tell a joke at a church gig that has a keyword like ‘sex’ or ‘Muslim’ or ‘Pam Rhodes’ and you listen out for the collective intake of breath. All eyes will turn to the vicar. He’ll give a nervous half-laugh, and then you’ll hear an identical half-laugh from everyone else a second later.
I’ve chatted to Muslim comedians who’ve found the same thing at mosque gigs, with the attendees checking the imam’s degree of laughter first. I mentioned this at a church gig recently and, sure enough, there was that collective intake of breath again.
I feared it could be similar at this clergy conference: surely with the Church of England’s hierarchy, all eyes will turn to the bishop? Or at least all the canons will look to the deans, the deans will look to the bishop, and the bishop will look heavenwards before giving a thumbs-up or thumbs-down?
Thankfully, this was not the case. Vicars, it turns out, like to let their hair down. Perhaps because of their position at life’s murkier ends - births, deaths, and even marriages - you can detect hints of the dark sense of humour found among doctors, nurses and undertakers. The myth of the humourless vicar is just a myth. Most have a keen sense of comedy, as you’ll no doubt hear in the jokes at the start of sermons.
Which leads me to my only complaint about the gig.There are gags that comedians do that we’re pretty sure will hit big. We call them ‘bankers’, although since the financial crash, we’re considering renaming them to a more, well, bankable profession, like ‘AA men’ or ‘service station toilet attendants who adhere to the sixty-minute toilet-clean countdown’.
Yet the big laughs never came from these vicars, because whenever I did a particularly snappy Bible-based gag that I thought would go down well, they’d all just start scribbling: my jokes, for their sermons.
I know they’d had a day of seminars and were used to note-taking, but these are my gags! They’re not sermon fodder.‘Thou shalt not steal,’ I believe the Old Testament says quite early on, and quite clearly. And don’t tell me ‘it’s not as if it was set in stone’ - it’s a commandment, it was set in a very famous stone. So that includes my gags, thanks vicars.
Apart from a few rebukes about gag-thievery, the gig went well.The banter was kept ecclesiastical and I stopped asking people what they did for a living. Well I was going to, until a gaggle of vicars started pointing to a bearded chap, chanting, ‘Ask him! Ask him!’
I sighed and asked the question. ‘And what do you do for a living?’ expecting to hear yet another person say, ‘Vicar,’ followed by three hundred titters.
‘I’m the Pope’s astronomer,’ came the surprising reply.
Now that’s an unusual one. Who knew the Pope even had an astronomer? I didn’t know that the Vatican had an observatory. It makes you wonder about the other great introductions made by the staff of world leaders:
‘How do you do, I’m the presidential osteopath. ’
‘Nice to meet you, I’m the Dalai Lama’s pool cleaner.’
‘Oh and have you met the chief canine manicurist to King Harald V of Norway?’
After the show, I chatted with Dr Guy, or the Pope’s astronomer as I shall continue to call him, because I just like saying it.[26]
‘The Vatican has resources,’ the Pope’s astronomer told me. ‘And meteorites.We’ve got a lot of meteorites.’
It goes without saying that if you own the Sistine Chapel, you could probably afford a pretty good telescope, and maybe the odd meteorite or two. Guy is one of a team of twelve astronomers to His Holiness.[27]
As you’d expect at a conference of three hundred vicars, he was in high demand for conversation. It’s not often you meet someone who’s trained as both a priest and a planetary scientist, and made it to the highest position that straddles both jobs.[28]
During our brief chat, he made it clear that his focus was the crossover of the science/faith debate. He spoke of how the two need to work together rather than be competing ends of the spectrum. Presumably then, being the only Catholic in a roomful of Anglicans is the last of his worries. If you can blur the borders between faith and science, you can definitely blur those between Catholic and Protestant.
‘If you look up to the stars then ...’ He was cut off by an intruding vicar, eager for a meet-and-greet-eorite.
I assume that he was going to say next that if you look up to the stars then you realise that we’re all the same. It’s quite possible he was going to say, ‘If you look up to the stars then you’ll see God has spelt out in the night sky the words: “Give up Anglicans, the Catholics are right”.’ I’ll never know.
After all, Catholics are big business ...
Why in Rome?
St Peter died in Rome, and each Pope is his successor. Rome became home to the Catholic Church when it split from the Eastern Orthodox churches in the schism of 1054. Good word, that, ‘schism’. Must try and use it more often.
Who in Rome?
There have been more than 260 Popes to date. Not that you should try and date any of them. Just a handful have abdicated, nine were deposed, and more than thirty have had their lives schismed cruelly short. Around a quarter of previous popes have been made saints.
Where in Rome?
The Vatican is both the world’s smallest independent state and the least populous, with around eight hundred residents. It has its own helipad, which Pope Benedict XVI was known to use. He actually held a papal pilot’s licence, and could often be found schisming the helipopeter from the land.
When in Rome...
...do as the Roman Catholics do. There are more than a billion Catholics worldwide, and they’re growing - not so much to do with conversion but more to do with views on birth control. There is no way to crowbar ‘schism’ into this sentence.
***
The morning after meeting the planetary priest, I find myself dwelling on our Catholic cousins. I’m gradually taking the day to reach a less ecclesiastical booking: a pub gig off the M5 that pays little but is always a delight, and most importantly is opposite one of my favourite takeaways. Sometimes that’s reason enough to take the gig.
Too often the Protestant/Catholic divide is highlighted, rather than our commonalities.Walking down a busy North Birmingham street on a Friday morning, I’m feeling a kinsmanship with all and any faith group, since within view I can see a mosque, a synagogue, a church and an abbey, plus a brown sign pointing to an Eastern Orthodox church. I’m a Cornishman, so I just need to hear a Devon accent to think somewhere’s multicultural. This street is blowing my mind - it must deserve some kind of plaque or government grant.
Keen for some urban exploring, I wait at a pelican crossing with three other gents, who I name John, George and Ringo, on account of this being the ‘abbey’ road.[29] As we cross, my chosen three don’t conform to the single-file choreography I’d hoped for, but I don’t cause a fuss. Let it be, I think to myself.
John and George cross straight into the abbey. Ringo doesn’t join them, preferring to head down the road towards the mosque. Friday is the holy day for Muslims, but that doesn’t mean that the abbey is closed for business - in fact far from it: dozens of
people along with John and George are entering for morning mass. I was just going to window shop to let my all-you-can-eat breakfast go down, ahead of my all-you-can- eat pizza buffet at lunchtime, so I decide to join them.
Now, I’m no Catholic. I’ve only got one sibling, icons are things I double-click on and the only confession I’ve ever made in a booth was to a passport photo machine about forgetting to shave. I’ve been to some ‘high Anglican’ smells-and-bells services in the past - so high that I learnt extra Latin and reeked of incense for days - but I’ve never actually attended Catholic mass. I’m only 60% sure I’m actually allowed in without a membership card.
I enter anyway, although I don’t partake in the entrance customs that John and George do: they dip their hands into some holy water and cross themselves. I decide that the best way to treat this service with respect is to sit, stand, sing and respond en masse in mass, but not to join customs that I know little of.
In the abbey itself, I’m hoping to sit on the back pew, but I don’t have a choice - we’re filled to the rafters with at least two hundred people here. On a Friday? Have they not got jobs? They can’t all be time-filling comedians?
I take the only remaining seat, halfway up the aisle, causing ten people to shuffle along. We instantly stand and everyone but me joins in some responses. Everyone knows exactly what to say. I panic that I was supposed to take a service sheet with what to say written down, but no, no one’s got one - all this is from memory. I’m impressed. In the Church of England we need everything printed in bold for us - on a screen or on a pamphlet distributed on the way in, which is either yellow, pink, green or blue, depending on where in the month we are. But here, the gathered worshippers know everything off by heart. Anglicans suddenly look as if we’re in a school play, reading our lines from scripts, while Catholics look like the RSC.
The main priest - there are too many priests to count - is an Irishman with bushy eyebrows that are the first thing you see, even from the back pew I’m sure. They’d knock you out in the front row. I wonder which came first: his ordination or the TV show Father Ted, because one definitely influenced the other.
The responses continue over several minutes: the priest says something, the congregation respond, sometimes even with movements of hands to the face or chin. I don’t even attempt to join in. If there’s one thing I advise a first-timer at a Catholic church, it’s not to sit at the front.The last thing you want is to look caught out in a game of ‘musical chairs’ meets ‘heads, shoulders, knees and toes’.
Everyone suddenly kneels, so I do too. The collapsing bodies reveal a church that’s ornate and artistic, with enough statues to rival Madame Tussauds. They’re saints, many of them standing on lions. Impressive, especially if that’s an exact representation of how they lived and travelled around.
To an Anglican like me, the only artwork I’m used to seeing is the depiction of Noah’s Ark by the Sunday school kids, pinned on a noticeboard that’s the church equivalent of a fridge door. Where’s our fourteenth-century fresco of Judas’ betrayal? This interior is at the same time a church, a museum, an art gallery and a terrifying episode of Doctor Who. Protestants have always been wary of anything that might be considered idol worship, so have avoided vivid paintings of the Messiah or ornate sculptures. In our church the crayoned attempts of William aged 9, bless him for trying, are nothing to worship.
Everyone joins in with various Amens and the like, and concludes with a prayer I’ve heard of: the ‘Kyrie Eleison’ (the ‘Lord, have mercy’ prayer, found in non-Catholic churches too). My distant memory knows the name, but I think autocorrected it to ‘Kylie Ellison’, who my brain wrongly tells me is a famous Catholic.
The Liturgy of the Word follows: a reading. Looking around me, some older worshippers run beads through their hands, as a reminder for prayer - somewhere between an abacus and a prayer to-do list. Everything seems to matter more here. There’s an added sense of ceremony to the Protestant equivalents - indeed, many of the attendees would probably not think of non-Catholic communion as anything like an equivalent. Here the whole occasion is steeped in tradition and mystery.
There’s no sermon here today - it’s a short Friday mass and not a Sunday service. Instead we enter the Liturgy of the Eucharist, as the bread and wine are prepared with more prayer. I’m shown up once more as the obvious non-Catholic, when the Lord’s Prayer is spoken and I unknowingly utter aloud,‘For thine is the kingdom, the power and the ... oh.’ It turns out they don’t say that bit here. Some Catholics do nowadays, but it’s not reached the abbey yet. Some turn to look at me, turn back, and we all say, ‘Amen.’
Then comes the Sign of Peace. I’m used to this in my C of E church - a nice communal moment where we all get to greet each other. I normally reach a few - in front, behind, a keen sidesman - but here it seems customary to greet everyone. If you’re near the door, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re encouraged out of the building and down the street to knock on a few neighbours’ doors to greet them too.
There’s a baby with his grandparents in front of me, and having greeted Granny and Granddad, I give a little wave to the baby and say, ‘Peace be with you.’
‘No,’ says Granny sternly. ‘Do it properly.’
‘I’m sorry?’ I’m a little stunned. That can’t be in the liturgy. Neither, judging by her look, is waving. Granddad has already moved on to shaking hands with every priest he can reach in time.
‘You shake his hand,’ she says. ‘He wants a proper Peace.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ I shake his baby hand and give a heartfelt, ‘Peace be with you,’ as I stare at him. I had always thought general form was to not shake hands with a stranger’s baby unless invited, but here the Peace supersedes all social niceties.
‘Thank you,’ Granny says, and smiles. Not a word of the Peace back from the baby though - just another example of the rude youth of today’s broken Britain.
As everyone else turns back to face front, Granddad is the last to sit down. ‘Got four of them!’ he whispers. Looking up, I see that’s only about half of the priests here.
The priest with the eyebrows invites us to sing the ‘Agnus Dei’, and the moment of transubstantiation occurs, when the bread becomes the body, and the wine becomes the blood.The bread is referred to as ‘the host’, I now discover - throughout the service I’d assumed they’d been talking about the main priest, as the host of a dinner party or a game show host. I should have realised of course that the host is Jesus - and we’re all invited to this feast.You don’t even need to bring a bottle.
My invitation though is reliant on me becoming Catholic, so I stay in the pew and send an RSVP heavenward: ‘Sorry, but I’ll be unable to attend ...’.
Protestant or non-denominational churches I’ve been to encourage all to partake of communion if you do so at your own church, but I’m aware that the Catholic Church prefers to restrict it to their own. It’s quite understandable: if you believe the bread and wine actually becomes Christ, you don’t want people like me consuming while denying what they believe. Imagine you’ve got friends over for Sunday roast. You’re serving lamb ...
‘Ooh lovely,’ the friend says. ‘I love Supernoodles.’
‘It’s not Supernoodles,’ you reply. ‘It’s lamb.’
‘Well, “You say potato, I say potarto”.’
‘No, I say lamb. It’s lamb.’
‘Well I think it’s Supernoodles. But it represents lamb, if that helps. Either way I love it.’
‘Put your knife and fork down, and please leave.’
There are a lot of priests here. It looks like last night’s vicar convention. There’s Father Eyebrows of course, but supporting him is a deacon, a crucifier (which is not someone who crucifies, I’m happy to say, but someone who carries the cross), a thurifier (who carries the thurible, as I’m sure you know), and other assorted altar servers. One effect i
s that the two hundred congregants process, receive and recess in record time. It must be three minutes, tops. It’s the perfect combination of a ton of priests and a regular congregation who have done this a thousand times.
The priests recess down the aisle, and the people leave slowly, taking time to cross themselves, kiss the statues, and dip in the holy water.[30] Some light candles as they go, including Granny from earlier.
Granddad mumbles as he pushes the pushchair out.‘But you lit one of those yesterday.’ She tuts and follows them.
Ritual is embraced by this abbey family. It’s not in vogue in many modern churches; the notion of repeating the same movements and mantras repels some. The numbers here today though would be the envy of many churches, especially on a Friday morning, so there must be something significant happening here.
Catholicism is of course more genetic than some strands of Christi- anity, but this only means that the Catholic Church will be alive and kicking long after other maverick churches have become trendy bars. My Anglican vicar once told me that one thing he loves about our church is the continuity: that people have worshipped there every Sunday for seven hundred years. Through wars and umpteen monarchs, the people have come to give thanks and pray for help.
Part of the mystery of Christianity is that Jesus can be fully God and fully human, and in touring around churches, some seem godly to me, and others seem human.This abbey today had the grandeur, the vaulted ceilings and the ornate attention to detail that points upwards. If I’m honest, I don’t feel that so much in some modern churches.There I see coffee cups, toddler groups, and a general clamour of people: a good dose of ground-level humanity. Both are vital. It seems some churches are for washing your hands (literally, for the Catholics I saw here), and some churches are for getting your hands dirty.
That’s not to say that huge and ancient buildings have no humanity - far from it. From large organisations like the Catholic Worker Movement, to nunneries and hospices, large archaic buildings like this have held people who have done great things at a personal level. The Catholic Worker was pioneered a hundred years ago by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, showing anti-war, anti-discrimination and social justice to be Christian and Catholic themes.