Foot and Mouth

Abstract

"For the preacher who wishes to speak words from within her community, yet not speak in ignorance, there is a question of integrity in public worship. For months it seemed to me that the spread of the epidemic was rightly a matter for our prayers of intercession, but that sermonstatements from the pulpit were not going to help anyone a great deal. Different ministers have taken different lines on this, as much depending on temperament and congregational identity as on theological perspective. One colleague, whose Manse is bordered by infected farms and who now looks out over his neighbours' empty fields, spent considerable time with those protesting at the initial mass burial sites for animal carcasses on the then 'clean' Epynt ranges. There will be a dedicated act of Public Worship in the Cathedral, although whether farmers, Union and Government representatives can gather meaningfully and with humility to be enabled rather than patronised by their priests is open to question. In our different ways, as churches and ministers, I think we are all betraying that unease with situations where we do not seem to be able to do anything significant"