Dean of Canterbury's Cat

'Let's leave some milk on the table with the cats around, after all, the last 'funny cat video' got us more views than we would ever get normally'. 

Now people will be expecting funny cat videos from the Church of England. Not safeguarding or proper care for the Church's victims, no, cat videos and with the Dean conveniently leaving his tea tray next to him etc. 

Most cat videos go on YouTube, they don't make local headlines, but the C of E, having been irrelevant in the recent crisis and having prioritized silly vanity PR releases throughout and since, are desperate for favour and attention. Presumably the popularity of cat videos on YouTube is encouraging this current run of stunts to be set up, appealing to cat lovers and cat video lovers, and making the news when it isn't news. 

You can call me stuffy and pedantic, but as a believer and a cat owner. If I'm praying or leading prayers, letting a cat gain the full focus, not preventing a situation where the cat can gain the focus, and then making it headline news is not Christian, it is irresponsible and is a publicity stunt, and it is what the Church of England do, constantly, they release not news, but stunts to try to gain favour, they show their shallowness and their separation from God. Any chance at a charismatic stunt to desperately try to convince the population that they are human, trying too hard, too staged, that is the norm for the C of E now. 

So will the reporters start taking cat videos off YouTube for news headlines now? No, the Dean of Canterbury has a PR team to set these things up, to show off while victims silenced by the same Diocese are left suffering. The only people drawn into the dying church by their shallow stunts and mockery of prayer through cozy videos with trays of tea are people who are happy to be as shallow and as cruel and as pretentious as those running the church now. 

As pet owners, we know what our pets will do, which cat or dog steals food etc, so the pretentious and unnecessary tea tray, nothing to do with prayer, could have been elsewhere, so could the cats, after the last big jolly show. Once might have been amusing but the second time, immediately sent to nationwide media, was the Church's current trademark desperation for attention. The Dean appears to be totally irresponsible and without respect for God or prayer in his use of the press for 'funny cat videos' with prayer as a sideline/excuse, because public attention is more important to the dying church. He could quite easily firmly put the cat on the ground and ask those hanging around out of view to take the tray so that prayers could be focused on, but that might have spoiled the launch of the show into the press. 

The Dean is knowingly part of what has been going on in the Diocese, so maybe rather than praying on street corners and cute cat videos and other attention seeking charisma and sympathy shows, he could be a Christian and challenge the cover-ups involving Canterbury. 

You can't build a congregation of true believers from set-up cat videos and the big pride that the public acclaim gives you, even the iconic false saintliness for the camera is barely skin deep.It's all a show, but forced comedy only says the same as the C of E's other shrieks for the press and media 'Look at us! Please look at us!'

Without his 'Clergy' role, would the Dean's cat videos make it to the mainstream or just be on YouTube with the rest? In order to be credible and engage thinkers rather than those who just flock to what they are told is funny or popular, the Church need to clean out their own house, including most of the senior clergy, and reform, as Graham Wood suggests: 

https://conservativewoman.co.uk/the-re-opened-church-must-reform-or-die/

That desperate shriek of a dying church who will use anyone, anything, to try to still be relevant, and God is but a sideline now an excuse for existing that they can't use for much longer as their words and works are so opposed to him. The Dean isn't going to build a congregation of non-thinking cat lovers among the old and wealthy who dominate the Cathedral, the church as a whole don't seem to have considered how their target audience don't mesh with their current one. 

Finally, usually the Diocese making the loudest shouts for attention is the one most afraid of big news breaking about crime or abuse within their Domain. I will be keeping my eyes peeled. The Archbishop himself appears to be above the law, but who knows? Others involved could be unexpectedly held to account as happened in another high profile abuse case recently. 

Keep the Faith.