When St. Hilda’s congregation left the Diocese of Niagara in 2008, bishops Spence and Bird sent the congregation a letter saying, among other things: “be assured that we are prepared to keep the doors of this beautiful church open and will offer every support and pastoral care to those who choose to stay.”
Five years later, not only are the doors not open, but the church has been barricaded with concrete blocks large enough to serve as tank traps.
Yesterday morning after a friend passed the building, she phoned me to let me know that there were three police cars in the driveway along with another car containing someone bearing a strong resemblance to Dean Peter Wall. I suspect that either someone had broken in and was squatting – in which case the diocese would have nothing to complain of since it is so keen on Occupy – or there had been an act of vandalism.
The back door does have some new decoration:
![_29U3837](https://www.anglicansamizdat.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/29U3837.jpg)
I can’t decide whether the symbol represents something satanic or is a new diocesan emblem.
In other parts of the property weeds have taken over what used to be attractive gardens:
![_29U3838](https://www.anglicansamizdat.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/29U3838.jpg)
It’s just as well the church sign is still announcing who is responsible for the empty, disintegrating, graffiti besmirched shell:
![_29U3841](https://www.anglicansamizdat.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/29U3841.jpg)
Here are the inviting concrete blocks in all their inclusive splendour:
![_29U3839](https://www.anglicansamizdat.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/29U3839.jpg)
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