I agree. But there are too many in our ranks who believe that if you’re ‘reasonable’, if you explain things to these bigots, then they’ll say, ‘Oh, I didn’t realise that, thank you for telling me. You’ve changed my whole outlook on Wales and the Welsh’. Truth is of course that they see such an approach as a sign of weakness and just laugh. I tend to believe that in dealing with these bastards we should take our lead from them.

This is also my last contribution on this subject.

It may surprise you to learn that I often visit Anglican churches on my peregrinations, in fact, I was in St Cadfan’s in Tywyn this very morning, marvelling yet again at that ancient stone cross. And each and every church I visit tells the same story.

We see the military standards and the banner of the local Royal British Legion, then there are the monuments and plaques to those whose families could afford them, so many of whom ‘came into’ Wales. For example, rooting around in St Cadfan’s this morning I came across for the first time the partly-hidden wall plaque to Sir Rupert Kettle, and a reference to his third son who had died in Cape Province in 1900. The Kettles were part of that nineteenth century influx of self-made men from the English Midlands hoping to set themselves up (more particularly, their offspring) as country gentlemen on the cheap.

Which serves to remind us that the Church of England in Wales is the official church of the English establishment and monarchy. It gained an influence in Wales disproportionate to the size of its membership and it still exerts an unhealthy influence on Welsh public life. It was never our church in the way that the Kirk is the church of the Scots, or the Catholic Church that of the Irish (or even the Presbyterian church that of the Ulster Scots). It was always a bit of England in Wales.

For some reason you mention Ambrose Bebb and Emrys ap Iwan, though I’m not sure why, seeing as neither was an Anglican. Yet, significantly, you make no reference to a genuine Anglican, and a priest, R S Thomas, who I was fortunate enough to meet on a number of occasions.

Perhaps because R S does not suit your agenda. After his experiences among the memsahibs of Eglwys Fach I think he understood full well the horrors of the Anglican Church’s essential Englishness.

Jac’s exuberantly ill-informed outburst on the Church in Wales is out of the same stable as Mr. Plessis’ unsavoury attacks on the Welsh language and those who speak it. There is the same blithe indifference to evidence, and the same hostility to logic. For what it’s worth, I might mention that the expression ‘Church in Wales’ derives from the Welsh Church Act 1914, or that the notion of the Church in Wales as prime mover in the anglicization of religious life in this country would have reduced Emrys ap Iwan and Ambrose Bebb to fits of hysterical laughter. But facts and reasoned argument are not at issue here.

We all have out limits. We need, of course, to identify and work with them. It is when we refuse to employ the gifts and understanding we in fact have that we are stupid. And when to that stupidity we harness an existental need to hate that we become – ah yes, that word to which I was coming – bigots. Jacques du Nord – RP du Plessis, même combat!

That silly cleric’s maunderings harm people who speak Welsh and their friends. Jac’s unsavoury sectarian outbursts, however, do not harm members of the Church in Wales. They make Jac look like a Celtic version of ‘Disgusted’ of Tunbridge Wells. But they also make it that much easier for the enemies of Wales to calumniate those of us who would defend her and her people.

This is my last intervention on this to pic. Verbum, ut ita dicam, insipienti.

‘Cryonic suspension’, I like that.

The fact is that despite its outward trappings the Church in Wales (note ‘in’ not ‘of’) was a creation of the tithe wars and other rural unrest from within an almost exclusively nonconformist and Welsh-speaking population. It was always the church of the gentry and those who wanted to ‘leave all that’ (Welshness) behind them.

Today, it is the most thoroughly English organisation in large areas of rural Wales, and even the larger towns outside of the south. The recent influx of English residents – especially older ones – has served to a) maintain Anglican churches while Welsh chapels close and b) reinforce the fundamental Englishness of the Anglican Church.

The Anglican Church in Wales today finds it almost impossible to recruit Welsh clergymen, hence the move to women priests – most of whom seem to be recruited from outside of the Welsh population – and even going overseas for staff. As I may have mentioned, our local vicar, the Reverend Vroom, is a Dutchman, and he’s not the only one in Wales.

The Anglican Church in rural Wales, even perhaps in Llangennech, is the church of the squire and his family, the church of the upwardly mobile, a stiff today kept upright and given the impression of life by the influx of English colonists.

The Rev Dr Plessis, with his contempt for the Welsh language, with his background, is the perfect representative of the English Church in Wales, more alien than ever.

The Church in Wales, like the Church of Ireland and many historic national Churches, accords considerable autonomy to its member and to those ministering amongst them. The consequences of this are usually beneficial. In the case of that foolish cleric who has said some perfectly venomous things in Llangennech, the consequences are, alas! deleterious. I’ll not require you to advance evidence that the Church in Wales officially endorses his vile assertions, since there isn’t any, but rather suggest that, the ad hominem rule notwithstanding, a condemnation of bigotry by you will be less likely to persuade ordinary right-thinking people if you yourself talk like a sectarian bigot who has been in cryonic suspension since before the Welsh Church Act 1914. Verb. sap.

“Typical of their kind, build a big empire no matter how f***in’ daft or ill equipped it is for the purpose of meeting needs.”

Now… what does that remind us of..?

Me also

Wales has 2 native groups, the Welsh and the Cymry, it is suggested the Welsh are ignorant of their history by elitist Cymry but this is not so, truth is they are well aware of their diverse lineage and therefore much less likely to be “blood and soil” so view moribund Cymraeg for what it actually is.