Now here’s something, which one hopes is sheer coincidence rather than evidence of a church policy.
The Anglicans have made two recent announcements (see http://www.manx.net/news/2485/appointments-of-two-clergy-to-posts-on-the-island
and http://www.isleofman.com/News/article.aspx?article=37370) of new clergy coming to the island.
See a pattern in the former professions of two out of the three new clerics?
The two former police officers will join at least one retiree from the local force that I know of now serving as a hobby vicar. And other retirees from the local force are increasingly joining previous retirees from other forces who settled here in full time work with other churches.
This is no surprise if you know that only a decade ago there were enough church-going cops here to keep TWO Christian police organisations going, and two decades ago these organisations were instrumental in the resettlement of a number of RUC and H Block prison officers to the island. In the case of the younger ones officially to ‘save costs’ in training local staff (and benefit financially from substantial ‘resettlement packages’ from the security services), while the older ones invested their even more substantial retirement packages in local businesses far away from disgruntled former clientele.
The ‘church police’, when added to the number of recently retired senior civil servants donning dog collars as a weekend hobby, do suggest a worrying trend. Just at the point when those who screwed up our public services (while our police force only existed to serve a bigoted few) are finally put out to grass they go to work for the very institutions whose superstition, immorality and (at times) sheer pig-headed ignorance held back the island in the first place.
The more the decent elements in Manx society try to drag us towards civilisation, the more the worst elements in society take refuge in religious institutions, having now even been binned by the least civilised institution of all, the Manx government.
10 years ago
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