Bishop defends 'prudent' legal steps for possible eviction of St Paul's camp
Violent clashes with police are not inevitable, Richard Chartres says after addressing protesters at cathedral
The bishop of London has said legal measures that could lead to anti-capitalist activists being forcibly removed from their camp outside St Paul's Cathedral are "prudent" and rejected claims that the move would inevitably lead to violent confrontations between police and protesters.
Speaking minutes after addressing Occupy London protesters on the cathedral steps for the first time, Dr Richard Chartres said he believed that "getting the legal situation clear is probably a sensible precautionary measure".
He added: "I don't myself subscribe to the idea that it's instantly going to lead to violent confrontations a prudent organisation has to be prepared and we just don't know what's going to happen. Nobody knows. The camp could be taken over by people who are very different from the ones who are in charge at the moment. I think it is a prudent measure."
Earlier, Chartres and the dean of St Paul's, the Right Rev Graeme Knowles, failed to respond when asked whether or not they would commit publicly to opposing the planned eviction of the camp, leaving activists frustrated. "Answer the question," some yelled.
Chartres later insisted it was irrelevant for him to take a stance, telling journalists: "I honestly have no part in it, because St Paul's and the Dean of Chapter are in charge."
Two days after St Paul's and the City of London Corporation said they would try to gain separate high court injunctions to remove the protesters, the two senior clerics held a tense discussion with hundreds of residents of the camp on Sunday morning.
Chartres told the group: "Nobody wants violence we all want to avoid that." But the first protester to take the microphone told him: "Violence will be visited upon those people in a brutal way [if an eviction takes place]."
Johnny Remlap, a student at the camp, said: "For all the sophistry and rhetoric about av! oiding v iolence, how can they reconcile that with being OK with evictions?
"They've given their tacit approval to it. They're giving de facto licence to violence because there will be violence. I'm not violent. But I'll get hit by a baton."
As the clerics alternated with protesters at the microphone, Chartres told the camp he had come "genuinely to listen". "We all suffer from a bit of media distortion," he added.
One by one, members of the camp stood up to express their anger. Teacher Peter Coville stressed "the deep values" shared by the Occupy movement and the church and said: "We ought to be fighting on the same side." Another said Chartres's earlier suggestion of a debate was "missing the point of this global occupation".
A woman received loud applause when she told the crowd she had been struggling with her Christian faith since the beginning of the conflict. Why, she asked, was she blessed "inside the church, but outside the church God would like to eject and remove me violently".
Asked about the suppression of a highly critical report into the moral standards of bankers by St Paul's amid fears it would inflame tensions, Chartres received loud applause when he told the crowd: "It will be published."
The report, based on a survey of 500 City workers who were asked if they thought they were worth their salaries and bonuses, had been due to be published last Thursday. Chartres did not indicate when it would be made public.
The cathedral's handling of the protest has been described as a "car crash" by the director of the Ekklesia religious thinktank, Jonathan Bartley, who predicted more high-profile resignations from the Church of England.
The canon chancellor of St Paul's, Dr Giles Fraser, and the Rev Fraser Dyer, a chaplain at the cathedral, have stepped down over the decision to pursue legal action to break up the camp.
Christian groups have draw up plans to protect protesters by forming a ring of prayer around the camp, should an attempt be made to forcibly remove them. Protesters say they have no intention of packing up, with many reiterating their intention to stay at the cathedral until Christmas and beyond.
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