From here:
Media Advisory: Government of Canada to Announce Support to St. George’s Anglican Church National Historic Site
MONTREAL, QUEBEC, Feb 21, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) — On behalf of the Honourable Peter Kent, Canada’s Environment Minister and Minister responsible for Parks Canada, the Honourable Judith Seidman, Senator, will make an infrastructure announcement regarding the conservation and presentation of the St. George’s Anglican Church National Historic Site.
St. George’s, is an historic site and will be a recipient of government largesse; to put it another way, taxpayers will pay for its upkeep.
I’m not averse to paying for the upkeep of an historically or aesthetically significant building, but there is a degree of irony in a church degenerating to this status: the activity for which it was built – housing worshipping Christians – can no longer attract enough people to pay for its upkeep. Or, more correctly, the Anglican Church of Canada’s confused, sub-Christian concoction of neo-paganism and eco-cultism is not attracting enough people.
The irony is reinforced by that fact that the Anglican Church of Canada has recently spent a great deal of money on lawsuits to wrest the ownership of buildings for which it has no use and can’t afford to maintain from those who could both use and maintain them.
How long before Bishop Michael Ingham declares St. John’s Shaughnessy an historic site worthy of taxpayer support? It’s running a deficit of $20,000 per month at the moment.