IN 2018, Archbishop Welby, a former Canon of Coventry and Dean of Liverpool, declared that cathedrals should be “places of celebration and joy and good news”. He also said that they should be “fun”. Cue a nine-hole crazy golf course in Rochester Cathedral, designed to “build bridges”; a helter-skelter in Norwich; Luke Jerram’s Museum of the Moon, which visited cathedrals in 2022-23; the sound-and-light show Lux Muralis; and, more generally, the use of cathedral spaces for corporate dinners and hospitality, films, and pop concerts.
The 42 cathedrals in England are among our most visited tourist attractions, and yet many of them struggle to keep financially afloat. It is inevitable that they are driven to market themselves as hospitality and entertainment venues. Those who agreed with Archbishop Welby that there should be no incompatibility between fun and sacred space even argued that providing “fun” should rightly be seen as part of mission: those who had crossed the threshold to see a film, or play crazy golf, would be more likely to return for worship or spiritual exploration.
The recent Theos report on cathedrals, Living Stones (News, 22 May), suggests that there is no evidence to support this. It argues, instead, and perhaps rather uncomfortably, that the true appeal of cathedrals is precisely that they offer sacred space, enabling the casual and the curious to have an experience that they would be less likely to have by visiting, say, a stately home or a zoo.
It seems obvious to me that the appeal of such vast constructions as St Albans, Durham, Ely, Lincoln, Salisbury, and Winchester is that they offer perspective. Our self-preoccupations are questioned by size and history. To stand at the west end of a vast cathedral and gaze through a forest of carved stone is to be confronted by our own limitations. This is not mere “fun”: it is intended to provoke wonder and humility.
The Theos report is important because it invites us to affirm the value of the sacred in itself — something that our society is not always prepared to do. It strikes me as ironic that secular France, where the boundaries between sacred and secular are more clear-cut, requires the State to maintain and repair its sacred buildings: think of the speedy restoration of Notre-Dame after the devastating fire in 2019 (News, 13 December 2024).
English cathedrals, on the other hand, are often driven to put more staff, time, and energy into fund-raising than into maintaining worship and welcome. Many of them are in deficit. There are current attempts to raise the question of cathedral financing among MPs, in the hope that, in time, at least some of the cost of maintenance might be born by the State. If that were to happen, it would bring its challenges; but it might liberate our cathedrals to point towards the mystery at the heart of things — the mystery that they were designed to celebrate.