SIN NO MORE, C of E

Frederick Forsyth says the Church of England is in no position to cast stones at the Prince of Wales `LET HIM who is without sin cast the first stone,' said the man from Nazareth, or so it is reported, and if the accuracy standards of the popular press were better in those days than now (and how could it be other- wise?), He probably did. In which case He must be looking down on this sceptr'd isle with a large measure of disappointment, for seldom have we been a more whinge- ing, whining, sneering, snarling, complain- ing, intolerant lot than today.

As an eternal optimist I happen to think that the bulk of the British people are probably as easy-going, tolerant, polite and cheerful as ever. But these are definitely not calling the shots any more. Pride of place in our brave new I-know-my-rights world must go to the hate brigade, whose faces, twisted with rage and loathing but devoid of a shred of intelligence, are to be seen at every violent demonstration or glaring out of the side windows of vehicles on the road.

Close beside them are the only marginally less abusive single-issue fanat- ics, ranging from the gay rights screamers to the meat-is-murder doolallies who seem to dominate every radio and television panel discussion with their flat-earth asser- tions. I blame communism: it should never have collapsed. So long as they were all committed to CND and Save the Cock- roach, the rest of us could live in peace. These are dedicated protesters, who since 1990 seem to have invented ten new causes to replace anti-Americanism.

Cheek by jowl come the ban-it regiment, who are well-meaning, earnest, credulous and gullible, easy meat for the fanatics to manipulate. Their creed is simple: I don't like it, so you shouldn't do it.

Presiding over the lot is our politically correct, pursed-lipped new government, so desperate to govern by opinion poll that one wonders why we simply do not appoint the chairman of Gallup to Down- ing Street. Hardly a Newsnight goes by that I do not see some minister solemnly denouncing all human pleasures that exclude a bit of juvenile buggery.

Fluttering helplessly on the edge of all this, trying to be trendy and on-message, is the once-dignified Church of England, the main target of whose clerical displeasure seems to be the Prince of Wales.

Prince Charles, it appears, committed four sins. First, he contracted a perhaps over-hasty marriage, which puts him among about 20 per cent of adult males. Second, his marriage collapsed in misery, putting him among probably 40 per cent of our population. When it had irretrievably broken down, and only then, did he seek comfort in the company of a former lady friend — there are no national statistics for this. Last, in a triumph of candour over calculation, he admitted such.

Since then, various prelates of hitherto unblemished obscurity have emerged to hurl not so much the occasional stone as a veritable quarry. As an onlooker one might be more impressed if the roar of Cato did not emerge as a cracked falsetto. For the Church of England is hardly the pillar of rectitude that I recall from my boyhood.

Beggared by ludicrous investments, it has tumbled into schism and occasionally `This home banking is just like the real thing!' ridicule. For years it was riven by the debate over the ordination of women, untidily setting traditionalists at the throats of progressives and driving quite a large congregation into the arms of Rome. More recently the issue has moved to that of gay priests, and now seems to focus not on whether they may be privately homosexual but whether they may pleasure their alter- native-lifestyle partners between Matins and Vespers. One wonders at what point a practical demonstration will have to be included in the Eucharist so that we can all remain relevant at this moment in time.

Our tackier tabloids revel on a weekly basis in discoveries of men of the cloth who cannot keep their hands off the choir, the deaconess or the congregation. If things go on in this wise, how long before we accept that the Established Church has finally plumped for Rabelais' fail ce que voudras school of theology?

Nor is it only unusual stirrings beneath the cassock that rivet the attention. From Lincoln comes news that the Dean, who helped turn the chapter into something resembling Bosnia on a bad day, has agreed to quit if someone will slip him the biggest brown envelope in ecclesiastical history. One shudders to think what Cosmo Gordon Lang would have said. Probably, from the Good Book, 'Jesus wept.'

The tragedy, of course, is that all this hides the work of the thousands of kindly, ill-paid and assiduous parish priests who carry out their duties far from the front page or News at Ten.

Still, faced with the headline-grabbers, the Prince of Wales might be forgiven for wondering whether he really wished to be Supreme Governor of such a bunch, rather than whether he was worthy so to be. In any case, the issue is gloriously irrelevant: the Queen is in rude good health, the Strathmores have awesome longevity and the question probably will not arise for years and years. Let us hope that by then the Church will have put its own house in order and be in a position to judge the fail- ings of others.

Priests have never been perfect, any more than the rest of us, but I seem to remember an age when, even if serious error was discerned, it was quickly cau- terised and the Church remained dignified. That, in Church as in State, is the real problem. Apart from the Queen and a few of like kidney, all the damn dignity has gone.

So before we read any more sententious condemnations of the heir to the throne, might I make this plea to the prelates? If you cannot give us example and leadership; if you cannot offer monogamy, or at least chastity and celibacy; if you cannot demon- strate unity, rigour, discretion or restraint; will you please, for Christ's sake (Him again), show us a modicum of dignity.

The author's latest book, Icon, is published by Bantam Press.