July 19, 2008

Or, at least, that's what my mother probably once told us, as she dragged us mercilessly towards the Building Of Doom each Sunday (or, latterly, Saturday night, because then we could get beef and green peppers and chilli with chips on the way home).

Now, I know this will be offensive to some, so, please, if you're that way minded, look away now...

But boy, did I detest the place.

To me, even in childhood, it was moronic, patronising bullshit - rows of near-hypnotic coffin dodgers mouthing elegy after elegy of meaningless trite tripe; an hour's worth of social engineering by the half-cocked people who failed their people exams.

What possessed them, I wondered? And why?

I mean, if you die, you just die.

It's a shame and all that, but people get over it. We all have, in the largest and smallest of ways.

And great - a man in a frock tells you it's okay to now have sex. Er, right. Thanks.

Oh, and that collection of stories based around centuries of people who had little else to do other than paraphrase a half-decent lifestyle is, in fact, more important than, erm, about six other widely-read collections of stories written over centuries by yet more people who had little else to do...

I know a "church" is a group of people rather than the building in which they gather, but nonetheless the two become entwined. And the rigid, soulless chanting of the so-called righteous makes those mock-gothic mausoleums more drained and lifeless than before.

That old chestnut that guns don't kill people, but people do, has resonance with religion: It's meant to save your soul, but by my reckoning at least it's the very reason why one half of the world is trying to kill the other.

So why, then, am I arsed that the place where I was once dragged, possibly baptised, certainly had my first Holy Communion, was confirmed, and briefly "served" on the altar, is to close next month forever?

This place:

I'll tell you why.

Because the good burghers of the Catholic "church" have realised that this not quite magnificent but certainly iconic building - and that's precisely how I see it - sits on a top of a hill that boasts views of a city waterfront that once upon time money could not buy.

But now the greedy Vatican and its avaricious men of skirts are ready to flog it to the nearest too-close-together-eyed developer with the largest pieces of silver.

The late Kenny Everett got it in one: "The Catholic church? Brilliant business idea - wish I'd thought of it."

14.15 EDIT: The Bishop refused to be interviewed by me, so I emailed him and asked if the church would be redeveloped (it can't be demolished, as its Grade Two listed) and, if absolutely not, would he actually swear on the Bible that that was the case. He didn't reply.