c. 1997 Religion News Service

LONDON _ The”humbling, astonishing”response to the death of Princess Diana dramatically demonstrated a deep strain of religious yearning among the English people to which the church must learn to respond, according to Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey.”I discern a continuing deep respect for the churches when the faith is practiced with sincerity, something of which we saw in the humbling, astonishing reaction to the death of Diana, Princess of Wales,”Carey said.

Carey made his comments Monday (Oct. 14) while delivering the 1997 Ashe Lecture in Leicestershire. The text was made available in London.

The archbishop, spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican communion, said the outpouring by people pointed to the need for the Church of England to adapt to”a society not antagonistic to faith but in many cases distant from the claims of organized religion.” England, like the rest of Europe, is often portrayed as a secularized society with extremely low levels of worship attendance and church participation.

But Carey took issue with such assessments.”Even in western Europe, the decline in formal religious observance clearly does not imply wholesale abandonment of belief in the religious and spiritual significance of life,”he said.

In particular, Carey singled out the participation of pop singer Elton John in the funeral service. The service has been criticized by some conservative Anglicans for being too secular by including John and eliminating the traditional funeral homily.”Elton John in a cathedral funeral service seemed before the event an extraordinary element,”he said.”All credit to the approach which can embody such an element where it felt natural and where it evoked such emotions in a way that nothing else could have done.”The funeral service … had all the dignity and beauty that we associate with Westminster Abbey, but the (cathedral) dean also had the courage to listen to what people were longing for in the midst of their shock, grief and pain,”he said.

Carey, who comes out of the more evangelical, innovative wing of the Church of England, said that beyond the funeral service, the reaction to the death showed a deep religiosity in the people.”It was also clear up and down the country that many people wanted to participate in rituals such as the lighting of candles, the laying of wreaths and silent prayer, through which they could express their longings, their searchings and supplications on their own terms and in their own way,”he said.”We must make more space for people to open their hearts to God and express themselves _ and not be content simply to offer our own established rituals on a take-it-or-leave-it basis,”he said.

Referring to the process of liturgical revision in which the Church of England is currently engaged, Carey said reformers must stress simplicity, beauty and brevity in their proposed changes.”Many people estranged from organized religion do not take kindly to the prolonged wordiness of many Anglican services,”he said.

But those charged with reforming the liturgy must also do all they can to translate the Christian message into social action and not equate the proclamation of the Gospel only with what happens in church.”The conversations we have with our families and friends, being the people we are in all we do in our daily lives, are part of being evangelists for Christ,”he added.

In a second lecture, on Tuesday, Carey continued his theme of changing the church to meet the spiritual needs of the unchurched by urging Church of England parishes not to confine their activities to Sundays but to become”seven days a week”churches.”Such is the pressure on Sunday now, through commercial expansion, leisure opportunities, and family commitments, that if we allow Sunday to be the only day in which Christians gather together we shall find commitment to Christ diminishing,”he said.”Let us cultivate a vision of the church as a body which reaches out with the holistic gospel in a million and one different ways into the community, and then make our Sunday activities significant elements within that wider program,”he said.

DEA END NOWELL