Said the bishop to the curate looking for a parish...

[sallycinnamon78]

"Rudeness in today's church can afflict the highest, such as the bishop who told a curate looking for a parish: "You have to ask yourself who would want you at your age?", to a vicar's wife. Who said to a woman who had just lost her new-born child: "Maddening, isn't it?" "

Letters expose 'breathtaking' rudeness of church life
http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,2763,1674601,00.html?gusrc=rss
Stephen Bates, religious affairs correspondent
Thursday December 29, 2005
The Guardian

In what remains of the season of goodwill, a religious newspaper has uncovered spectacular examples of Christians falling short of religious ideals in their treatment of fellow churchgoers.

When the Church Times, which has recorded the foibles of the Church of England for more than a century, asked readers for examples of rudeness, its editor, Paul Handley, admitted to having his breath taken away by the results.

A wheelchair user was advised to go home instead of attending a service, a vicar was told by a church warden that new families attending a service "weren't really our type", and a visiting vicar told bereaved relatives he had drawn the short straw in being asked to conduct a funeral service. At a choral evensong in one of the royal peculiar chapels - churches such as Westminster Abbey which are under the direct authority of the Queen - a disabled woman was manhandled by a sidesman because she could not get up for the national anthem.

Mr Handley said: "I thought nothing could surprise me in the readers' responses ... but as the emails and letters came in they constantly took my breath away. Correspondents have been driven to write at length about clergy who, on the face of it, ought to be pursuing another occupation, preferably one that doesn't involve anyone else".

Well. Anyone?

 

[For Honor]

It's better that happened to the poor man sooner, as opposed to later. Talk about having impaired vision......

 

[Sue DeNym]

Human decency and good manners on the whole are declining everywhere; read any news source, you'll see all kinds of stories of rudeness, incivility and the latest fill-in-the-blank rage. This sort of behavior from anybody is disgusting. From people in positions of religious authority, it is even worse, because they should be setting an example of decency and empathy, not only to their own parish, but to everyone.

 

[verte76]

This doesn't exactly shock me. People think it's OK to be rude, so they are.

 

[sallycinnamon78]

At a choral evensong in one of the royal peculiar chapels - churches such as Westminster Abbey which are under the direct authority of the Queen - a disabled woman was manhandled by a sidesman because she could not get up for the national anthem.

This shouldn't be happening at all, particularly not in the UK's 'Royal Peculiar and House of Kings' (http://www.westminster-abbey.org/). I know it will anyway because you get morons everywhere- but Westminster Abbey is a national institution answering directly to the Head of the Church of England, for pity's sake. If this place can't set an example to the nation, then something's rather wrong in my opinion.

This doesn't exactly shock me. People think it's OK to be rude, so they are.

I know. what gets to me is that people such as that bishop are eminent members of their church and should be setting a good example. Maybe that's unrealistic, I know we're all human and everyone has bad days or says something they wish they hadn't, but his little comment was ridiculous. As for the rest, it was just rather sad.