Angry fathers plan St Paul's protest

THE CHURCH TIMES

 9TH JULY 2004


by Bill Bowder

FATHERS 4 JUSTICE, a group of fathers campaigning for equal access to
children after a separation, plans to put 100 men on to the roof of St
Paul¹s  Cathedral, it emerged this week. It hopes to unfurl a banner
protesting: "In  the Name of the Father".

The organisers admit that such an event would be "slightly controversial".
Past protests have seen fathers dressed as Spiderman and other "superheroes"
climbing on bridges and gantries and disrupting traffic.

The reason for the cathedral protest, the group says, is that the Church has
not done enough to support fathers. Matt O¹Connor, founder of the group,
said  this week that clergy were ignoring the rights of fathers when it came
to the  baptism of children.

"The Church has not been supportive in case after case where a child has
been christened without the father¹s knowing about it or being invited to
attend," he said.

"In the last few months I have had eight cases, seven Church of England and
one Roman Catholic, where sometimes very young fathers were not asked to the
christening," he said. "The clergy had not made any attempt to make contact
with them."

Mr O¹Connor would not give further details of the proposed protest, except
that it would take place during the summer, and might include more than one
cathedral.

"We are fairly adroit at scaling things. There is easy access to St Paul¹s.
Between 100 to 200 people may be involved, either spread out or maybe
focused.

"Lots of lads have written to the Archbishop of Canterbury and to Cardinal
Cormac Murphy-O¹Connor in very polite terms, but have got nowhere. These
great  institutions seem to be missing the integral and fundamental point
about the  role of fathers and fatherhood in society."

St Paul¹s Cathedral would not comment in detail about the campaign.
Nevertheless, a spokesman said: "We do not believe that any group¹s
interests  would be best served by abusing public buildings and mounting
protests in a  place of worship such as St Paul¹s. If such a protest were to
take place, we  would be most concerned to ensure health-and-safety
requirements were not  breached."

Sue Burridge, a member of the Archbishops¹ Council¹s Mission and Public
Affairs Division, admitted that the protesters could have a point. "Clergy
may  have tried to contact a father, but been told by the mother that she
did not  want any contact, and felt they could not push the matter," she
said.