The two iconic churches, Trinity Church Wall Street in New York, pictured to the left, and St Paul's Cathedral in The City of London, pictured below, have been much on my mind for the past several days. The famous churches are coincidentally(?) located in the financial districts of the two great cities. What I've thought of is the face-off between the churches and the Occupy groups in both cities.
After a period of time, the authorities in the churches decided that the Occupiers had to go, and the groups were forcibly removed. The right choice for the churches, to come down on the side of the 99%, seemed stark and obvious to me, but both chose to move against the Occupiers. These are churches, for heaven's sake, the Body of Christ.
Occupied Bishop George Packard, a retired bishop in the Episcopal Church, gets it. He joined the Occupiers and
has been arrested twice in connection with Occupy protests.
Giles Fraser, former Canon Chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral, gets it, too.
He resigned his position when the authorities in the church decided to remove Occupy London protestors by force from the grounds around the cathedral. He now serves as priest-in-charge at St Mary's Newington, a parish in one of the poorer neighborhoods in South London.
The Occupy movement is by no means finished. Just because the groups are not occupying parks and squares in their tents or marching in protests every day does not mean that they have disappeared. Disdain for the elite and their absorption in prospering themselves and their near total disregard for the common good will not go away.
Now that this post is written, perhaps I'll be able to move on to other subjects besides the 'Story of the Day'...not that there's anything wrong with the stories, because if I didn't like them, I would not post them.
Photo of Trinity from
Wikipedia.
Photo of St Paul's from
Cathedral & History.
UPDATE:
An Occupy.com Profile: Bishop Packard
