St Paul's Cathedral & The Protesters: Clergy bunch of cowardly custards...

The church would never have survived down the centuries if the most recent clerics of St Paul's Cathedral, in London, were there at the very beginning. One sign of a challenge from the Roman Empire and they would have crumpled, like the cowardly custards they have proved to be in recent days.

Protesters against the financial fat cats based in the City of London have set up their own tent city outside the cathedral. Their presence resulted in the cathedral being closed, followed by the resignation of Canon Giles Fraser, Chancellor of St Paul's, who rather liked the squatters and objected to any efforts to evict them. He resigned, when one would have thought he should have stood his ground and fought for his beliefs.

Over the past few days two more of St Paul's senior clerics have also resigned. The Dean, Graeme Knowles, was the man who took the decision to close the cathedral for "health and safety" reasons when the tents first appeared and was fully behind efforts to get rid of the tent people. However, the rest of the clergy didn't want a fight and off he went in a huff. The third resignation came from a chaplain, who probably couldn't stand the strain.

The aim of the protesters is to topple the bad financial men of the City of London, but instead they have created turmoil within the church and specifically St Paul's. It is not as if the occupiers of the tents are particularly rowdy. They all sound very posh when being interviewed on the TV and, in fact, it was revealed that most desert the tents at night to return to their bijou apartments across London, presumably for a shower and to watch themselves on the news programmes.

Pardon me if I appear cynical, but as someone who has to work for a living, I am suspicious of protesters who can afford to do it as a career. I am never sure if they are being subsidised by a trust fund or benefits and if the latter then I am paying for it!

However, the majority in the country would fully support the protesters aims, which is to question the morality of financial institutions who did much to create the economic chaos across the world, but who have carried on doing business as usual, while raking in big fat bonuses.

It is sad that St Paul's felt forced to close its doors for the first time in living memory and it is unfortunate that those responsible for this beautiful cathedral felt unable to stand their ground instead of running away at the first sign of trouble.

Cathedral & History - St Paul's Cathedral, London, UK