I feel very sorry for the clergy and the people of Bath Abbey. Visitors to the city may well remember that the abbey stands in the midst of a busy and highly picturesque townscape, and it is in this that the problem lies. The noise form buskers using amplification has on occasion made services in the abbey impossible.
This is a not uncommon problem in Rome, I remember, from bitter experience. When I lived on the Corso, the city’s main artery, one’s life was made a misery by groups of buskers using amplification, which was further amplified by the surrounding tall buildings. This would make itself heard in churches, and also in people’s apartments, most of which were not double glazed. It would start early in the morning and go on to late at night. The Carabinieri and the police were unable to intervene as the buskers (who were Romanian gypsies) were not breaking any law. A polite request to the buskers to move on from a man who lived nearby and whose father lay dying upstairs, was flatly ignored.
What the Bath Abbey situation tells us is that nowadays the line between sacred space and public space has become so blurred as to be meaningless. (For those whose homes are invaded by noise, it is the line between public space and private space that has become blurred, which is another question, though an important one too.)
A church represents a sacred space, a consecrated place set aside for prayer and other holy actions, especially the celebration of the sacraments. The town square outside is secular, and the setting for our social interaction. Now, the two are connected spaces, in that the people who interact outside are the same people who are called by God to communicate with Him inside the church. But though connected, these two spaces are distinct.
Once upon a time the distinction between secular and sacred was clearly understood. Nowadays, with the emphasis on an understanding of secularism as meaning the exclusion of religion from the public space, a meaning that is new, we also have to cope with the public space invading the sacred one. But once upon a time, the Church door marked a frontier, often cleverly reinforced with steps, curtains, Holy Water stoup, and the change of lighting and temperature that distinguishes so many historic churches. To step into a church was to step into a different world – still this world, but this world in full communion with the divine.
While I would not apply this to the clergy of Bath Abbey, the secularisation of the sacred has been helped by a variety of Trojan horses which have compromised the inviolability of the sacred. If you hold coffee mornings in church, or paid concerts, or meetings that should be held in a Church hall, or indeed any sort of function in which it becomes seemingly appropriate to remove the Blessed Sacrament (I am talking of Catholic churches here) then you are compromising the sacredness of your church, indeed you are secularising it, but not in a good way.
We must defend the sacred, and we must defend the secular as well, because the correct interaction of the two is important for any healthy society. As for what is going on in Bath, bearing in mind what I remember from Rome, isn’t it high time that these “street entertainers” were moved on? Who benefits from their talentless cacophony?
Areas of Catholic Herald business are still recovering post-pandemic.
However, we are reaching out to the Catholic community and readership, that has been so loyal to the Catholic Herald. Please join us on our 135 year mission by supporting us.
We are raising £250,000 to safeguard the Herald as a world-leading voice in Catholic journalism and teaching.
We have been a bold and influential voice in the church since 1888, standing up for traditional Catholic culture and values. Please consider donating.