| I leave at the beginning of March for Cidade de Deus [the City of God]. This is a big step of faith, as for nearly all my life I have lived at three different stops on the London Tube.
Latin America really got to me after I watched the film The Mission back in 1987 before I was ordained. It taught me what a priest is called to be. It is about the Jesuits and their work with the Guarani Indians in the 18th century, and how they gave their lives to these people.
I was told you never come back from a sabbatical. When I had been here [Team Rector of Old St Pancras, London] for ten years, I took one, and went to the City of God, as I had seen the film of that name, which was based around the town. I couldn’t believe there really was such a place, and I wanted to see it.
I had never lived in a place before where you heard gunshots on and off all day. I was forever ducking and diving into shop fronts, but everyone else seemed to carry on normally. We have Camden Town in our parishes, which is generally known to be Europe’s largest drugs market; but you don’t see dealers with large rifles standing on streets corners.
The City of God was built as a housing estate in the 1960s to solve the housing crisis in Rio. I have seen photos of what it was like: poor families arriving with a great sense of hope and the prospect of a new start. Yet it is now a gun-ridden, drug-trafficking area, a massive slum district; but there is always hope.
I am going to help Fr Eduardo Costa, the Anglican priest already working there. But he has three parishes, and cannot give a lot of time to the City. My plan is to be there day by day. The Church has been working there for 20 years, and runs a number of social projects.
We do a lot of work with asylum-seekers here at Old St Pancras. A big part of our ministry has been working with them, and there are quite a number from Latin America. I made a promise to one of them, who had left her family behind in Ecuador, that when she got asylum, I would return with her for a visit. We did, and she showed me the place she had left, her grown-up children, how much she had left behind for a better life here.
I will miss the large team we have here. One of my abiding memories was our work after the London bombs [News, 15 July 2005]. I got called the minute we heard something had happened at King’s Cross. I rushed down in my cassock, and the police let me through the cordon. I prayed for a couple of people who had died, and talked to the wounded.
The scene as the emergency services came up from the horror below was a vision of hell. We set up a special area outside the station where the bereaved could lay their flowers. Those days really showed that, despite what is generally considered a post-Christian Britain, people were desperate for the ministry of a priest.
We have also created a new post of chaplain for St Pancras, now Eurostar has arrived. Forty million people are set to pass through here each year, and we knew it was vital to have a priest embedded in the life and work of the station.
I am going for three years initially and am supported by USPG. But I am having to find funding, £60,000 in total, and there is still a bit more to raise. Many parishes across the diocese have been very supportive.
I am looking forward to some serious reading and reflecting in the years ahead, but I adore anything by Rose Tremain. She’s an intense and passionate storyteller, championing unconventional characters, who are often outsiders. She almost always gives the transformative power of love the last word.
I am on my own, but my parents are still alive. Modern technology means the world is much smaller; so it will be easier to keep in touch. There was a time when it would have been a three-week boat trip.
As a child, I wanted to be a journalist. It began at primary school, when some of us went on a TV programme about King’s Cross. This got me interested in news, and I later did some work experience on our local paper. It was when Mountbatten was killed, and I happened to find a local scoop. I was hooked. The work of a priest and a journalist is not so different: it is all about telling a story, albeit different ones. I also learnt about the importance and place of the local community.
My biggest choice in life was to become a disciple of Jesus Christ as a teenager. That choice has opened up my life in the most extraordinary ways, and has given me immense privileges. Doors have been opened up for me that would never have happened in other walks of life.
I do regret giving up being a journalist: it is still in my blood, and I have a number of friends in the trade; so I can live that bit of my life through them.
The late Bishop of Edmonton [the Rt Revd Brian Masters] was a very influential figure in my life. He has perhaps been characterised for his views on the ordination of women, but he was a remarkable priest, and gave his life to the service of the Church. The number of clergy at his funeral was a testimony to his ministry. I was his chaplain, and was there when he died.
I’m always impressed by the sermons and speeches of Rowan Williams. I remember what seemed like an effortless address without notes at St Alban’s, Holborn, a couple of years ago, but it was preaching at its most pastoral and profound. His lecture to the lawyers recently saw him leading the Church at the forefront of the public debate. Sadly, a prophet is often not welcome in his own land. I sometimes think we have an Archbishop of Canterbury who’s just too holy and intelligent for 21st century Britain.
In the Bible, I love that passage in John’s Gospel at the end of chapter 6 about the disciples’ journey with him.
I get angry about injustice, particularly the British Government’s attitude to immigration. I also hate seeing the poor being marginalised on the streets in our community.
I would like to get locked in a church with Fidel Castro. Cuba fascinates me. Its healthcare and education system puts ours to shame; yet in 50 years he has never been elected by his own people. What does make him tick?
The Revd Nicholas Wheeler was talking to Rachel Harden.
www.uspg.org.uk for more information or to offer support; or phone 020 7378 5678.
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