Yakub Qureshi

The Manchester Evening News reported on Monday that the city’s Cathedral “is to host a ‘new age’ festival featuring tarot card readers, crystal healers and ‘dream interpretation’”. It seems that in some desperate attempt to attract people to their Church, local Anglican leaders, including the Bishop of Manchester, Rt Rev Nigel McCulloch, will hand over Manchester Cathedral to “fortune tellers, meditation experts and traditional healers”.

The festival, called “The Spirit of Life”, is scheduled to take place on 2 May, and is meant to be a celebration of “all forms of spirituality”, according to Bishop McCulloch. The Manchester Evening News adds that the event will “also feature stalls and workshops on angels, prayer bead-making and massage”, as well as performances by a fire-breathing vicar.

The Bishop of Manchester is reported to have said that the activities and spiritual exercises on offer were compatible with Christian belief. I must say, though, and with all due respect to the spiritual leader of Manchester’s Anglicans, that many Christians would beg to differ with him. I believe that both Scripture and the tradition of the Church would support my view that tarot readings and crystal healings are superstitious at best, and demonic at worst. They therefore run contrary to the Gospel of Jesus Christ - who came to liberate men from such idolatries.

Has the Church of England really sunk so low? Has she lost all trace of the splendour of truth with which Jesus Christ imbues his Church? Has she now moved so far from Catholicity as to have been duped by error and rubbish? Surely, events like "The Spirit of Life" should confirm the notion that schism leads to heresy, and that heresy destroys the faith? Surely, orthodox Christians within the Anglican Communion will see this nonsense for what it is, and will therefore have to choose either to stay on the sinking ship, or jump onto the saving barque of Peter? The Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham can be seen as a little boat sent out by Peter, to bring faithful Christians within Anglicanism safely home to shore. As one with a deep concern for those who have been baptised into Christ, I join with the whole Catholic community in urging any who remain within the Church of England to seriously consider the life-line that is now on offer to them, before their Communion sinks without trace!

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