The baffling senselessness that we feel at a time like this—which lasts a few days for the world and years for those close to it—should not lead us into resignation and cynicism, where we shrug our shoulders in an attitude of “What can you do?”

Instead, it should bring a flash of recognition that this is not the way it’s supposed to be. What we are seeing is a mystery of iniquity so great that it should rattle us—prompting us to put aside our theatrical hatred of one another long enough to ask, “How can we stop this?”

But that will require genuine discussions on public policy, justice, and safety. It will also mean asking ourselves why so many people will forget about Nashville—and the terror faced by those children and teachers—in a matter of days, just as we’ve forgotten all the other towns and cities that have been torn apart by this kind of murder.

The time we live in is not normal, and it is not leading us anywhere we want to go. The first step to stopping these hate-driven crimes is to recognize that fact.

Read it all.

“The time we live in is not normal, and it is not leading us anywhere we want to go.”

From @drmoore: https://t.co/KT8dZUnLUO

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) March 29, 2023

As part of his job as fraud detector at biomedical publisher Spandidos, John Chesebro trawls through research papers, scrutinising near identical images of cells. For him, the tricks used by “paper mills” — the outfits paid to fabricate scientific studies — have become wearily familiar.

They range from clear duplication — the same images of cell cultures on microscope slides copied across numerous, unrelated studies — to more subtle tinkering. Sometimes an image is rotated “to try to trick you to think it’s different”, Chesebro says. “At times you can detect where parts of an image were digitally manipulated to add or remove cells or other features to make the data look like the results you are expecting in the hypothesis.” He estimates he rejects 5 to 10 per cent of papers because of fraudulent data or ethical issues.

Spandidos, based in Athens and London, accepts a large volume of papers from China, with around 90 per cent of its output coming from Chinese authors. In the mid-2010s, independent scientists accused Spandidos of publishing papers with results that recycled the same sets of data. As part of its response to the allegations, the publisher is using a team of in-house fraud detectors to weed out and retract fake research.

Over the past two decades, Chinese researchers have become some of the world’s most prolific publishers of scientific papers. The Institute for Scientific Information, a US-based research analysis organisation, calculated that China produced 3.7mn papers in 2021 — 23 per cent of global output — and just behind the 4.4mn total from the US.

Read it all (registration or subscription).

China’s fake science industry: how ‘paper mills’ threaten progress https://t.co/ajIYXluYA9

— FT China (@ftchina) March 28, 2023

Elon Musk and a group of artificial intelligence experts and industry executives are calling for a six-month pause in developing systems more powerful than OpenAI’s newly launched GPT-4, in an open letter citing potential risks to society.

Earlier this month, Microsoft-backed OpenAI unveiled the fourth iteration of its GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) AI program, which has wowed users by engaging them in human-like conversation, composing songs and summarising lengthy documents.

“Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable,” said the letter issued by the Future of Life Institute.

The non-profit is primarily funded by the Musk Foundation, as well as London-based group Founders Pledge, and Silicon Valley Community Foundation, according to the European Union’s transparency register.

Read it all.

A group of artificial intelligence experts and industry executives is calling for a six-month pause in developing systems more powerful than OpenAI's newly launched GPT-4.
Their open letter cites potential risks to society and to humanity. https://t.co/whnM8yn94A

— CBC News (@CBCNews) March 29, 2023

New every morning is the love
our wakening and uprising prove;
through sleep and darkness safely brought,
restored to life and power and thought.

New mercies, each returning day,
hover around us while we pray;
new perils past, new sins forgiven,
new thoughts of God, new hopes of heaven.

If on our daily course our mind
be set to hallow all we find,
new treasures still, of countless price,
God will provide for sacrifice.

Old friends, old scenes, will lovelier be,
as more of heaven in each we see;
some softening gleam of love and prayer
shall dawn on every cross and care.

The trivial round, the common task,
will furnish all we ought to ask:
room to deny ourselves; a road
to bring us daily nearer God.

Only, O Lord, in thy dear love,
fit us for perfect rest above;
and help us, this and every day,
to live more nearly as we pray

Grant, O God, that in all time of our testing we may know thy presence and obey thy will; that, following the example of thy servant John Keble, we may accomplish with integrity and courage that which thou givest us to do, and endure that which thou givest us to bear; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Today the Episcopal Church celebrates John Keble, Priest and Poet, 1866 https://t.co/BmTmViXUHn

Image: Photo by Robert Hawker Peniel Preston, mid 1860s, in the National Portrait Gallery, CC BY-NC-ND, via https://t.co/s2j8rIY9UC pic.twitter.com/I8lSBbbf4o

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) March 29, 2023

Thanks be to thee, O Lord Jesus Christ, for all the benefits which thou hast given us, for all the pains and insults which thou hast borne for us. O most merciful Redeemer, Friend and Brother, may we know thee more clearly, love thee more dearly, and follow thee more nearly, now and for evermore.

"The Aurora Tree" pic.twitter.com/uBTEhMquIj

— simon c woodley (@simoncwoodley) March 29, 2023

But how are men to call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher? And how can men preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach good news!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel; for Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ.

–Romans 10:14-17

Good morning 🌎 Have a wonderful Hump day all ✨💫🥰 , leave you with this capture from the most West Point in Skye 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Neist Point #goodmorning #photo #skye #scotland #photooftheday #humpday @VisitScotland @StormHour @ThePhotoHour pic.twitter.com/Hl3MTtA4Xk

— Dr.P_78Glasgow (@AbhaPaulina) March 29, 2023

Now a crunch is coming. The churches that make up 45 per cent of our Grade I listed buildings cannot be looked after in perpetuity by the dwindling band of faithful who worship in them. We need, as a nation, to work out how they can be preserved and allowed to thrive.

Churches don’t have any particular right to survive. St Bartholomew the Great can claim to be the oldest surviving extant church in the City of London only because all of those older foundations burned down or got bombed over the years.

We came close — in 1830 the timber store in the nonconformist chapel caught fire and took the whole south side of the church with it. It took decades for the church to be restored. This is the nightmare that haunts every parish priest: that your time in office might be short, but might also be fatal.

Which means we need, as a society, to decide what we want to do with these treasure-houses. How much do we really want them to survive and, if we do, what we want them to do and to be? Or will we decide to let them, rent-free to rain and sheep?

Read it all.

Five of the victims were transported to Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital, about four miles away, but were pronounced dead on arrival.

“The children … started their morning in their cute little uniforms,” Rachel Dibble, who was at the Baptist church with the waiting families, told the Associated Press. “They probably had some Froot Loops, and now their whole lives changed today.”

At Woodmont Baptist, not long after they heard the sirens whir by, pastors and staff read reports of a shooting at Covenant. When they saw on Twitter that their church was named as the reunification site, they didn’t question it—they just put on their nametags, met police in the parking lot, and prepared to open their doors to buses of surviving children and parents desperate to see their kids safe and sound, senior pastor Nathan Parker told CT.

The children gathered in the fellowship hall, where the student minister handed out coloring sheets and began processing the shooting with them. Parents waited in the sanctuary through the slow reunification process, not yet knowing the extent of the attack.

“As pastors, we are supposed to have the words. Today was one of those days that words didn’t come easy. If they came, they came from the Spirit,” Parker said.

Read it all.

The adult victims were head of school Katherine Koonce, 60; substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, 61; and custodian Mike Hill, 61.

The three students killed were each 9 years old. https://t.co/zb9zQjrEbr

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) March 28, 2023

The portion of American hospital beds occupied by children with suicidal or self-harming behavior has soared over the course of a decade, a large study of admissions to acute care hospitals shows.

An analysis of 4,767,840 pediatric hospitalizations by researchers at Dartmouth, published on Tuesday in the medical journal JAMA, found that between 2009 and 2019, mental health hospitalizations increased by 25.8 percent and cost $1.37 billion.

The study did not include psychiatric hospitals, or reflect the years of the coronavirus pandemic, suggesting that it is a considerable undercount.

Especially striking was the rise in suicidal behavior as a cause: The portion of pediatric mental health hospitalizations involving suicidal or self-harming behavior rose to 64.2 percent in 2019, from 30.7 percent in 2009. As a proportion of overall pediatric hospitalizations, suicidal behavior rose to 12.7 percent in 2019 from 3.5 percent in 2009.

Read it all.

American hospitals are increasingly crowded with children brought in for self-harming behavior, an analysis of 4.7 million hospital stays found. “You have a whole system failure here that is registering itself in suicidal kids” one doctor said. https://t.co/waLeoQVMTl

— NYT Science (@NYTScience) March 28, 2023

A last bastion of privacy, our brains have remained inviolate, even as sensors now record our heartbeats, breaths, steps and sleep. All that is about to change. An avalanche of brain-tracking devices—earbuds, headphones, headbands, watches and even wearable tattoos—will soon enter the market, promising to transform our lives. And threatening to breach the refuge of our minds.

Tech titans Meta, Snap, Microsoft and Apple are already investing heavily in brain wearables. They aim to embed brain sensors into smart watches, earbuds, headsets and sleep aids. Integrating them into our everyday lives could revolutionize health care, enabling early diagnosis and personalized treatment of conditions such as depression, epilepsy and even cognitive decline. Brain sensors could improve our ability to meditate, focus and even communicate with a seamless technological telepathy—using the power of thoughts and emotion to drive our interaction with augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) headsets, or even type on virtual keyboards with our minds.

But brain wearables also pose very real risks to mental privacy, freedom of thought and self-determination. As these devices proliferate, they will generate vast amounts of neural data, creating an intimate window into our brain states, emotions and even memories. We need the individual power to shutter this new view into our inner selves.

Read it all.

Brain sensors could improve our ability to meditate, focus and even communicate, but they also pose very real risks to mental privacy, freedom of thought and self-determination. | Analysis https://t.co/BDeqplwldb

— Scientific American (@sciam) March 28, 2023

O God, the font of resurrected life, draw us into the wilderness and speak tenderly to us, so that we might love and worship thee as did thy servant James Solomon Russell, in assurance of the saving grace of Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

O God, who by the example of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ hast taught us the greatness of true humility, and dost call us to watch with him in his passion: Give us grace to serve one another in all lowliness, and to enter into the fellowship of his sufferings; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end.

I lift up my eyes to the hills. From whence does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved, he who keeps you will not slumber.

–Psalm 121:1-3

William Taylor says: ‘The bishops of the Church of England have walked away from us.’ St Helen’s annual clergy review will now be led by Archbishop Foley Beach of the worldwide orthodox Anglican grouping, GAFCON.

Meanwhile, Richard Moy, Resource Church Lead at ‘Christ Church W4,’ says of the meeting between 180 clergy and their London diocese bishops: ‘It was extraordinary. The meeting was called with expectations that [just] the “usual suspects” would turn up but had to be relocated when it was clear that there were more than a couple of dozen people coming.’

Moy says the bishops were told that the whole leadership of one charismatic church plant had told their minister: ‘Of course we’re leaving the C of E.’ This was echoed by four or five other charismatic churches with Global Majority Heritage congregations from across several networks.

A clergyman believed to be the longest serving in the room said he had been ordained 47 years, in the diocese for 40 years and that there had always been rogue or renegade bishops. However, this was the first time that the House of Bishops had collectively gone against the majority view of the Anglican Communion, Anglican doctrine and Biblical authority, Moy reports. At this, those present erupted into ‘rousing applause’ after which the bishops were reported to look as though they were in ‘shell shock’.

Read it all.

The head of the Evangelical Alliance, Gavin Calver, believes the organisation may see a growth in membership as the Church of England moves ahead with divisive plans to bless same-sex couples.

In an interview for the Religion and Media Centre’s Big Interview podcast, Calver said it was “too early” for the EA to tell Anglican evangelical congregations what to do because the Church of England is still in the process of formulating new pastoral guidance on the blessings.

However, he said that the EA was ready to be a place of support and a “port in a storm” for evangelical congregations dismayed over the Church of England’s direction of travel.

“We’ll probably find that a number of Anglican churches join the Evangelical Alliance, because it’s actually a time where they want to be in unity with wider evangelicals, as well as continuing in their space, which is challenging,” he said

Read it all.

Social care is facing a “very, very distressing situation”, the Archbishop of York has told Parliament as he urged Government action to tackle the crisis.

Speaking at Westminster, the Most Rev Stephen Cottrell painted a bleak picture in the region he represents, with vulnerable people not receiving the support they need, while recruitment and retention of staff was “appalling”.

The senior church leader raised his concerns as ministers were also pressed over reports that a promised £500 million investment in the adult social care workforce could be at risk.

Read it all.

“In the cities of Hull and Middlesbrough, which I serve, I see so many people in need of care+not receiving it.

“I discover recruitment+retention R appalling. I find care workers having 2 use food banks so they can feed their families" https://t.co/A7GECquy24 #socialcarecrisis

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) March 27, 2023

In 1899 a relatively obscure priest working in a City Mission in the slums of South Boston was compiling a book on prayer from articles he had written for the Saint Andrew’s Cross, a magazine of the recently established lay order of the Protestant Episcopal Church known as the Brotherhood of St. Andrew. Seven years before, this celibate priest had left the Order of the Cowley Father’s whose House was just across the Charles River in Cambridge. Although he left the order over a dispute between his superior, Fr. A. C. A. Hall and the Order’s Father Superior in England, the young priest never left the inward embrace of the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience—even less did he leave behind the spiritual disciplines of the religious life he had learned so well under Fr. Hall’s steady hand. Somewhere between his pastoral and social work among the sordidness and squalor of the South End—replete with red light district, street waifs, immigrants and vagrants— and his late night vigils of intercessory prayer or early mornings spent in meditation, not to mention the full round of parish duties, he found the time to write. In the final chapter of his little book, With God in the World, he wrote words that now appear as strangely prescient for his own life: “Men—we are not thinking of butterflies—cannot exist without difficulty. To be shorn of it means death, because inspiration is bound up with it, and inspiration is the breath of God, without the constant influx of which man ceases to be a living soul. Responsibility is the sacrament of inspiration. . . . The fault of most modern prophets is not that they present too high an ideal, but an ideal that is sketched with a faltering hand; the appeal to self-sacrifice is too timid and imprecise, the challenge to courage is too low-voiced, with the result that the tide of inspiration ebbs and flows.” He was to parse this belief taking root in his soul, with the phrase “the inspiration of responsibility”. Within two short years he would have the opportunity to test these words with his life.

His name was Charles Henry Brent, born the son of an Anglican clergyman from New Castle, Ontario in 1862. How Charles Brent, a Canadian by birth, came to be a priest in of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts and under the episcopacy of the renowned Phillips Brooks, and later, the almost equally celebrated Bishop William Lawrence, is itself an interesting story we haven’t time to explore. Suffice to say that God seemed to be grooming through the seemingly quixotic twists and turns of providence a bishop not merely for the church or for one nation, but for the world—a man, of whom it could be said, he was Everybody’s Bishop.

You may find Part One there and Part Two here. Take the time to read it all.

#OTD March 27, 1929
Death in Lausanne, Switzerland, of Charles Henry Brent, an Episcopal priest active in the ecumenical movement. Two years before his death, he had presided over the 1927 World Conference on Faith and Order, in Lausanne, Switzerland. pic.twitter.com/NgUT4qgI34

— ☧ Today in Christian History (@HistoricalRook) March 27, 2022

In the past few weeks, the Christians of the world have been holding their first major conference in some 500 years for the specific purpose of seeing what can be done about unifying Christianity as the sum of its world-wide parts.

Preparation. Today the parts (denominations) number 200-odd, all of them organized as distinct entities. The practical necessity of relating so many parts, of discovering identity among so many entities, was established by the Edinburgh Missionary Conference of 1910. The logical necessity was established later the same year, at a convention of the Episcopal Church in Cincinnati. The man who then proposed a world conference on Faith & Order lived to see such a conference actually held, after 17 years of preparation, and to preside over it as chairman, at Lausanne, Switzerland, the past three weeks.

Chairman Brent. This man was Bishop Charles Henry Brent of the Episcopal diocese of Western New York. Canadian-born and educated, naturalized in the U. S., an obscure worker in the awkward robes of the Cowley Fathers among the poor of Boston, later (under Bishop Phillips Brooks) an Episcopal rector who was made a missionary bishop and sent to the Philippines because of his earnest simplicity, rugged strength and adaptability among people of other races, it was Bishop Brent who confirmed General Pershing in the Philippines and subsequently became Chaplain-in-Chief of the A. E. F.

First in war, first in peace, Bishop Brent had had experience in handling international conferences, as president of opium parleys at Shanghai (1909) and The Hague (1911). He declined the bishoprics of Washington, D. C., and New Jersey, to preserve for his world ministry the freedom of action he enjoys at Buffalo, N. Y. When his world ministry reached its peak this month, he was not content merely to preside over the hundreds of churchmen he had brought together, but went with them into their councils; explained, directed, adjusted and dictated daily despatches on their progress to the New York Herald Tribune.

Read it all (requires subscription).

(For his feast day) Charles Henry Brent cover story in Time, August 29, 1927 https://t.co/4batzXLWFS@TIME #churchhistory #ecumenism #missions #christianity #history #parishministry #clergy pic.twitter.com/ayzHHMZllU

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) March 27, 2021

Heavenly Father, whose Son did pray that we all might be one: deliver us, we beseech thee, from arrogance and prejudice, and give us wisdom and forbearance, that, following thy servant Charles Henry Brent, we may be united in one family with all who confess the Name of thy Son Jesus Christ: who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Today the Episcopal Church commemorates Charles Henry Brent, Bishop of the Phillipines, and of Western New York, 1929 https://t.co/I09wiw0Xfw

Portrait photo by Unknown photographer, 1901-1918, in the National Portrait Gallery, London (CC BY-NC-ND) pic.twitter.com/eZMTKoLHz2

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) March 27, 2023

O God, who by the cross and passion of thy Son Jesus Christ didst save and deliver mankind: Grant that by steadfast faith in the merits of that holy sacrifice we may find help and salvation, and may triumph in the power of his victory; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

‘But I trust in thee, O Lord,
I say, “Thou art my God.’

–Psalm 31:14

‘Bora da’ 😄🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿☀️🔥
‘Good morning’ 😄🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿☀️🔥@carolvorders @AledHall @hooson21 @Ruth_ITV @ItsYourWales @bootlegger1974 @StormHour @ThePhotoHour @hawley_caroline @carolkirkwood @S4Ctywydd @RealShanCothi @sianharries_ @HCynwal @DerekTheWeather @elinfflur pic.twitter.com/dbmQ8D4ENT

— Llelo Gruffudd (@Llelo2801) March 27, 2023

Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of this world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Thus says the LORD of hosts: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes; they speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD. They say continually to those who despise the word of the LORD, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to every one who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, ‘No evil shall come upon you.'”

–Jeremiah 23:16-17

In the beginning was the word. Language is the operating system of human culture. From language emerges myth and law, gods and money, art and science, friendships and nations and computer code. A.I.’s new mastery of language means it can now hack and manipulate the operating system of civilization. By gaining mastery of language, A.I. is seizing the master key to civilization, from bank vaults to holy sepulchers.

What would it mean for humans to live in a world where a large percentage of stories, melodies, images, laws, policies and tools are shaped by nonhuman intelligence, which knows how to exploit with superhuman efficiency the weaknesses, biases and addictions of the human mind — while knowing how to form intimate relationships with human beings? In games like chess, no human can hope to beat a computer. What happens when the same thing occurs in art, politics or religion?

A.I. could rapidly eat the whole of human culture — everything we have produced over thousands of years — digest it and begin to gush out a flood of new cultural artifacts. Not just school essays but also political speeches, ideological manifestos, holy books for new cults. By 2028, the U.S. presidential race might no longer be run by humans.

Read it all.

“Language is the operating system of human culture,” write @harari_yuval, @tristanharris and @aza. “A.I.’s new mastery of language means it can now hack and manipulate the operating system of civilization.” https://t.co/PbX2KZ2fvw

— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) March 24, 2023

We beseech thee, O Lord, pour thy grace into our hearts; that we who have known the incarnation of thy Son Jesus Christ, announced by an angel to the Virgin Mary, may by his cross and passion be brought unto the glory of his resurrection; who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

25th March is the Feast of the Annunciation:

"Ecce ancilla Domini, fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum."#FeastoftheAnnunciation
Cotton MS Caligula A VII/1; Painted miniatures probably from a Psalter; 12th century; f.3r @BLMedieval pic.twitter.com/7kPGpXN4jo

— Ennius (@red_loeb) March 25, 2023

Almighty God, who alone gayest us the breath of life, and alone canst keep alive in us the holy desires thou dost impart; We beseech thee, for thy compassion’s sake, to sanctify all our thoughts and endeavours; that we may neither begin an action without a pure intention nor continue it without thy blessing. And grant that, having the eyes of the mind opened to behold things invisible and unseen, we may in heart be inspired by thy wisdom, and in work be upheld by thy strength, and in the end be accepted of thee as thy faithful servants; through Jesus Christ our Saviour.

–Robert W. Rodenmayer, ed., The Pastor’s Prayerbook: Selected and arranged for various occasions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960)

Guten Morgen ☕️🌷 wünsche euch ein wunderschönes Frühlingswochenende 🍃🌼🍃
⭐️ Ach, seht doch, wie sich alles freut, es hat die Welt sich schön erneut! Der Lenz ist angekommen.⭐️
Christian August Vulpius pic.twitter.com/C41J1yDYXz

— Renate Kleine (@RenateKleine) March 25, 2023

He turns rivers into a desert, springs of water into thirsty ground, a fruitful land into a salty waste, because of the wickedness of its inhabitants. He turns a desert into pools of water, a parched land into springs of water. And there he lets the hungry dwell, and they establish a city to live in; they sow fields, and plant vineyards, and get a fruitful yield. By his blessing they multiply greatly; and he does not let their cattle decrease. When they are diminished and brought low through oppression, trouble, and sorrow, he pours contempt upon princes and makes them wander in trackless wastes; but he raises up the needy out of affliction, and makes their families like flocks. The upright see it and are glad; and all wickedness stops its mouth. Whoever is wise, let him give heed to these things; let men consider the steadfast love of the LORD.

–Psalm 107:33-43

I think I just spotted where the sun recharges every morning. 🌅🔋
Today’s sunrise from Coast Guard beach, Eastham, Cape Cod National Seashore.#BeachSunrisePowerUp #capecod #StormHour pic.twitter.com/mWPFz9QVIV

— Darius Aniunas (@dariusaniunas) March 25, 2023

Increased in-person attendance, which had been severely impacted in 2020, reflected the vaccine rollout, and the easing of Covid-19 restrictions throughout the year, though it also showed that many people chose to stay away from public indoor spaces especially during those periods when restrictions remained in place, and during the late autumn that saw the emergence of the Omicron variant.

Despite the challenges brought on by the pandemic, the data showed a weekly total of 15,800 people were reported at cathedral services in 2021. This is a 22 per cent more than the equivalent figure from 2020, although still 58 per cent below the 2019 figure.

Meanwhile, the number of cathedrals offering online worship in addition to, or augmenting in-person services remained high, with 94 per cent of cathedrals continuing to offer this.

Weddings showed the closest return to pre-pandemic numbers with 230 marriages conducted in cathedrals during 2021, 93 per cent of the figure from 2019, and an increase of 250 per cent from the 2020 total.

During 2021, there were a total of 320 baptisms conducted in all Church of England cathedrals. This was 43 per cent of the equivalent figure in 2019, but a 242 per cent increase on the total number of baptisms that took place in cathedrals in 2020.

Read it all.

"The data from 2021 demonstrates the resilience of the cathedrals and their importance to local communities in the face of adversity."

– Dean of Canterbury, @davidrmmonteith reflects on the latest data from Church of England cathedrals.

Read more at https://t.co/UOHpwt09sM.

— The Church of England (@churchofengland) March 24, 2023