The cathedral

The decision to partly demolish the quake-crippled Christ Church Cathedral will be "heartbreaking" for many Christchurch people, according to mayor Bob Parker.

Good God. Get over it. It will be a huge relief to see it no longer there in pitiful ruins in every photo, and to know that the church is planning something new, different, fresh and relevant.

It was a rather ordinary building anyway, as cathedrals go. No one who has stood in Freiburg Munster or York Minster, could claim that Christ Church Cathedral was great, “iconic”. It was a handsome church of its type -- colonial 19th century English nostalgia, which says nothing much to the world and realities of the 21st century. It was built with manifestly unsuitable material and methods, on unstable land.

Some Christchurch councilor said he would chain himself to the building to prevent demolition. He could organize hundreds of locals to hold hands around the ruins. He actually said they would pull it down over his dead body. Well OK -- two birds with one stone, as it were.

And isn’t it interesting how all these people who in fact have nothing to do with the Anglican church suddenly start claiming some sort of ownership and a say in the matter. “The cathedral belongs to Christchurch…” Well, that would be news to the Anglican Church Property Trustees. “I am by no means religious, but…”

Then this morning, a retired 73-year-old Anglican priest sets out how much the cathedral has always meant to her and her clan, all the events that have happened there, memorials to family members there, ordinations, baptisms there… Wonderful. But it all bespeaks a church that actually doesn’t exist anymore. And if I wanted to know about a proper format for the church of the future I would be unlikely to enquire from this dear lady.

What with care and toil he buildeth,
Tower and temple, fall to dust.

I don’t know whether Bishop Victoria Matthews feels besieged, but TV shows her standing there quite unsupported at media interviews answering silly questions clearly, humbly and succinctly. Where are the cathedral canons and suchlike?

The cathedral dean, Peter Beck, resigned and stood for a vacant Christchurch City Council seat, which he won. I am sure he will do a lot for the city that way. But we have to wonder about what caused a senior Anglican cleric to hand it all in. It may have been what so often happens these days, simply a change of vocation.

Of course Bishop Victoria is not of Canterbury blue blood. She is an import, a foreigner, and she is female. I think there are Christchurch Anglicans and others for whom all that means she starts well behind.

However, there are as we know two cathedrals in Christchurch, not one, and both are more or less in ruins. The Catholic Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Barbadoes Street was in my view a far more interesting and significant building. It impresses me that the Catholics have been much quieter in bearing their anguish and plotting their future.