Camp on our land, Cof E tells travellers
THE Church of england could open its land to travellers amid a ‘historic’ move to ‘actively welcome’ different groups.
The initiative was launched as archbishop of york Stephen Cottrell yesterday attended appleby Horse Fair in Cumbria, europe’s largest gathering of travelling people.
He rode a traditional horse-drawn dray, toured a romany caravan and had tea and biscuits with community representatives.
at the same time, archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby visited travellers in Dorset to mark the launch of the Cofe’s Gypsy, roma and Traveller (GrT) Friendly Churches initiative.
The scheme aims to create ‘a bridge between settled people and travellers’. Dr Welby said: ‘We can and must do so much more to welcome, support, include and advocate for them.’
Parishes will be encouraged to offer support which could include ‘offering to pray with a family, offering water to people camping on the roadside, signposting people to services, or accompanying people to an appointment or engaging in more complex advocacy’.
The Bishop of Carlisle, James newcome, said churches should go further. addressing a congregation at appleby’s medieval St Lawrence’s church, he said: ‘We call on every church in the land to be GrT-friendly and provide places for them to camp off-road, and embrace their way of life.’
The Cofe has faced criticism for ‘woke’ policies including allocating £100million to address its ‘complicity’ in the slave trade.
Meanwhile, archbishop Welby last month spoke out against the Government’s flagship policy of sending asylum seekers to rwanda, calling it ‘the opposite of the nature of God’.
yesterday is believed to have been the first time that an archbishop of york has visited appleby Fair in recorded history. The four-day event attracts 10,000 travellers to the town, which has a population of 2,000 – plus 50,000 visitors.
roma gipsy spokesman Billy Welch said: ‘This is a massive step forward in relationships.’
Former chaplain to the late Queen elizabeth II Dr Gavin ashenden, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, called the idea of allowing travellers to use church land ‘very short-sighted’.
He said: ‘The idea of [the Cofe] irritating their own community by pretending to solve a problem that can’t be solved is not very clever.’