Building faith
Christine Jardine’s 22 April Perspective piece saying the Notre Dame inferno had made her appreciate Edinburgh even more must strike a stimulating chord with lots of old readers who just took our buildings for granted, forever in the background of life.
It has taken all those visitors from abroad in recent years to give us a shake. Only the other day, I found myself startled afresh by the ardour
of a Spanish couple telling me how “wonderful” Edinburgh is. When I asked what places had most impressed them, their response was instant – the view from Calton Hill, and St Giles Cathedral.
Now, it is some decades since my wife and I visited Paris and determined to fit in an evening service at Notre Dame. Arriving 15 minutes early, we found the place so full that we had to be squeezed in to a back pew in
the gallery. This was a surprise – in my 20s I had read the revelatory France Pagan? by Abbé Godin and learned that France was not the universally devout Roman Catholic country we in Scotland had been brought up to think.
All was explained in a few minutes when the congregation rose and left en masse because the organ recital had come to an end! Yet, in 2019, the French as a nation still
love their cathedral so much that they are going to pay for its restoration.
Of course, the French maintain all their ancient cathedrals, don’t they? And I understand that the Germans opt to pay taxes for all their Kirks.
We do things differently in Scotland. The great general public does not seriously value St Giles and the other truly wonderful church buildings across the country.
Even the majority of church members left responsible for the costs do not give as they could and should. The printed Intimations for Easter Sunday in the beautiful central town church I worshipped in had reason to compliment people for their generosity to international disaster appeals but also registered with concern a deficit of£16,000 in the 2019 budget. “Here’s tae us! Wha’s like us?” indeed!
(REV) JACK KELLET Dyers Close, Innerleithen