You are here
VANCOUVER, BC: Former Tobacco King Appointed New Rector of St. John's Shaughnessy
Holy Smoke and smudged mirrors attempt by revisionist bishop Ingham to jump-start the evangelical parish
News Analysis
By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
April 8, 2012
When 99 percent of the evangelical Anglican parish of St. John's Shaughnessy walked away from their $20 million dollar parish on Granville Street last September, New Westminster Bishop Michael Ingham asked the Archbishop of Canterbury for help to find a replacement for the Australian-born evangelical rector Canon David Short.
Well, St. John's has gotten a new rector and he's the Marlboro Man. The Rev. Michael Fuller who will start in July spent 20 years working as CEO of Philip Morris International, a purveyor of 831 billion cancer-inducing cigarettes per year. Some 443,000 Americans (over 18 percent of all deaths) die because of smoking each year. Secondhand smoke kills another 220,000. Around 5.4 million deaths a year are caused by tobacco worldwide.
So a former evangelical parish is taken over by a beefy, institutional Church of England liberal who has about as much chance of jump starting this parish as a Tsunami wave hitting English Bay. As one blogger observed, one wonders what he has done to deserve to be appointed to a church with no people.
A source in England told VOL that Fuller is certainly no Evangelical. "I expect he has been brought in to finish off what little remains at Shaughnessy. That may be the intention." In a public letter fuller was one of the 100 London clergy calling for same sex marriage. That might be one answer.
The former tobacco king is also a member of the Rowan Williams Fan Club. He did a favorable book review on one of the ABC's books on Amazon.uk.co.
One wag noted that in Canada cigarette manufacturers are required by law to place graphic warnings on their packaging. Why not apply the same rule to the toxic Diocese of New Westminster in their ads to attract new members? Membership in this Diocese may be injurious to your spiritual and eternal health. Its theology contains unwholesome elements. How can a diocese, which is so big on social justice and the environment, bring in a priest who rose to the top of the cigarette manufacturing game?
The Rev. Michael Fuller will begin his new ministry as incumbent of St. John's, Shaughnessy, Sunday, July 15th (St. Swithin's Day), 2012. There is irony here. St. Swithin's reputation was for posthumous miracle working. Fuller will certainly need all the miracles he can get to breathe new life into 20 odd people, some of whom are undoubtedly smokers.
Either way it will be a case of death by a thousand cigarette butts.....courtesy of Fr. Fuller, another blotch on a theologically nicotine stained Communion.
The appointment of Father Fuller to St. John's Shaughnessy gives new impetus to that old expression
HOLY SMOKE
I'm a coughing my way to heaven,
A coughing with every puff.
I'm a coughing my way to heaven,
While listening to Ingham's guff.
I'm a coughing my way to glory,
A coughing both day and night.
I'm a coughing my way to glory,
Round the bend and out of sight.
I'm a hacking on Pop Fuller's gaspers,
On Philip Morris and John Players.
I'm a hacking on Pop Fuller's gaspers,
I'm a hacking while saying my prayers.
END
