[DEBORAH] POTTER: Twenty million dollars to repair a building is a lot of money. Is it worth it? Is there a real value to having cathedrals in the 21st century?
[FRANK] WADE: Cathedrals are part of where our culture restores its spiritual values and its sense of mystery. That’s really important. We need places like that, and the Washington National Cathedral plays that role in a peculiar way, in a particular way on the national scene””a great church for national purposes. So I think it’s very, very important. We would lose a great deal if we had no place to turn at key moments in our life when we want to remember God, remember mystery in the larger context of life.
POTTER: The Cathedral has always been a place where dialogue happens, and most recently, you’ve opened up the pages of your magazine to a dialogue, or at least a Q and A with the two presidential candidates about their faith. Why was that important?
WADE: It’s important because there’s no””while we separate church and state, there is no separation of faith and state. Faith is how you figure out life. It’s how you set priorities. The faith of our leaders is a very, very important part of the conversation. It’s how they will approach their job. So it’s a legitimate part of what goes on.
Read or watch it all and please note the link to the Cathedral Age issue which asks each of the parties’ prospective presidential nominees questions about their faith.
“POTTER: The Cathedral has always been a place where dialogue happens”
If I ever use a phrase like “a place where dialogue happens,” you should cringe and walk away, or … start looking for me on your local PBS station.