'I don't mourn the end of Christendom': interview with Red Rector, Fr. Paul Butler
Parish priest of S. Paul's Deptford on socialism, secularism and football. Interview as seen in Weekend Worker Magazine (Tripover, 2022)
Fr. Paul Butler, Parish Priest at S. Paul’s Deptford, is still clearing up from Sunday Mass mid-afternoon due to excessive chatting. With the help of church warden Lavern, he sets aside his duties for an interview.
WW: What does a day look like for you at the church?
Fr. Paul: Parish Priests in the church of England normally work 6 days a week, and in my case my working day starts about 8am, and finishes about 10pm. I’m not necessarily working all the time, as one has to fit in other parts of life, but it is a long day. Most parish priests live more or less ‘over the shop’ as it were; and so one always has an ear out for what’s going on. The churchyard is a peaceful sanctuary for all, for the living and the dead. During the day when the churchyard is open, I keep aware of what’s going on, and sometimes that requires me to persuade and stop people from doing unhelpful things, whether that be doing damage to the church building, encouraging owners to put their dogs on leads, or acting in other antisocial ways. Most of my days are bookended by two markers. Morning prayer, and evening prayer, or a celebration of Holy Mass. Usually morning prayer is at 9, evening prayer is at 6, and Mass at 6.30pm Tuesday to Thursday, at 10am on Friday, Midday on Saturday, and 10,30am on Sunday. In a parish like S. Paul’s, which is a Grade 1 listed building built in the 18th century, the responsibilities both legal and practical are quite enormous. Being in an area of economic poverty and instability, most things are only possible because of volunteers, who are also worshippers, and give considerable amounts of their time.
In between all that stuff, there are funerals, baptisms, and weddings et al. Arranging everything has become more complicated over time. When I was first ordained, my boss, the parish priest, who trained me in Sheffield, would say to me, ‘The only thing you need to know when arranging a marriage is whether they love each other, and is it intended for life?’ Those were the key questions; if there was any extra permission required. Now we ask, ‘What’s your immigration status?’ ‘What’s your legal right to be in this country?’ I can’t arrange a wedding without knowing that information. Governments have become more hostile to histories of peoples’ lives.
When I’m not working I always make time to do some reading. I read widely and try to keep up with all sorts of things; political, philosophical, theological… I started Tweeting over 12 years ago. I’m a bit to the margins of ‘Priest Twitter’, in a little niche of Anglo-Catholic socialists. Yet I like to be, to use a phrase from our diocese, ‘outward-facing’. I like to engage positively, whether that be about Christianity, Italian Marxism, Notts County Football Club, Joy Division, or Woody Guthrie and so on. There’s a lot of Notts County; I’ve been a fan since before I was born!
WW: Before you were born? What are the theological implications of that?
Fr. Paul: Well. [sighs] I have been a fan of County since my conception; my Dad is a huge fan. But never a fan of Nottingham Forest. It’s not like I bear any hostility towards them… I did a wedding not long ago, with a very nice couple who live locally, and one of them happens to support Forest… And at the wedding, I did a little talk, and I used one of the songs that Forest fans always sing as a way of talking about love and commitment and faithfulness. And his face as I started doing it… I could sense he was thinking, ‘Where is this going? Is this some County fan having a go at me?’ Being a parish priest should always be cooperative, collaborative work. It should always be encouraging people to come out, bring their gifts, and skills and talents. It should always be respectful to people who have different points of view. I also think you have to be quite robust and resilient. Supporting people through the joys and sorrows of inner-city life.
WW: What do you think the significance of the Church is today? What is its social responsibility?
Fr. Paul: I don’t mourn the end of Christendom. But I mourn some of its aspects. One of those is common life. Some of the things we used to share in common, as a community, are less than they were. It’s very hard sometimes. But there are certain moments in the year where I find it sad that festivals have been taken over by capitalism rather than the joy of celebrating those events together. I would include in saying this even the key festivals of Christmas and Easter. It seems what the Church is celebrating now is something other than what some are calling ‘Xmas’. Some of my life is in Italy, and I know people there who don’t go to Mass join in the celebration: Major Feasts and local Saints days. If only because people have time off work, rather than working all the time. One example would be, in Italy, around the feast of the Assumption in August, now the main feast of Mary, mother of Jesus, Italians have a holiday called Ferragosto, days with ancient Roman roots. Whether you go to Mass or not, there’s a universal sense of, ‘Here is a time where you’re not at work, time for joy, friends, family’. The word holiday means ‘holy day’, and yes, these are sometimes days of penitence or fasting, but often they are days of feasting. In order to do that, you need to not be at work.
All religion at its best offers a way of life in community, of hope and solidarity, to navigate the challenges of our lives, and religion holds out other perspectives on love and justice, mercy and forgiveness, often these are alternative counter-narratives and teleologies to those of neo-liberalism. Pessimism is not the only way of thinking about the end of an age. There’s something in saying that salvation, emancipation, is more than what happens in a political environment, more than what happens between those who happen to be elected. There are other aspects of life that are deeply significant. Maybe some of that is about other values than making profit, and short-term thinking.
Consider what has changed in this community since 1730 when S. Paul’s church was opened. Phenomenal changes have taken place. I’ve been reading in some of the old records about some of the good that the Church was seeking to promote, for the many casualties, injured and dead in the Napoleonic wars; fundraising events that would take place on a Sunday afternoon. An academic would come and give a sermon, there would be music; a collection for war widows and their dependents. We live in a time now where memories can be very selective, and those memories often suit our political agendas. Of course that can be important. But what churches do is… Well, I had to say this to somebody recently who was being very critical about some people who had attended this church in the past: ‘Churches are places for sinners. Whoever they are.’ And we don’t police the minds of people who come here.
So yes, people would have come to this church in the past with political views I would have disagreed with: on gender relations, on capital. And yet there’s that sense of saying, ‘Do sinners also not need God’s mercy? Are they not worthy of redemption?’
Secular liberals might think the church should be full of people who are ‘woke enough’, ‘righteous enough’. And yet part of the goal, or the telos, as the Desert Fathers would say, is that holiness is about a lifelong journey, everybody is in the process of becoming pure at heart. That’s the language Jesus would use: it’s a life’s journey, like a work of art. Nobody is finished yet.
