Walls ruin community spirit, says archbishop

By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent and Miles Salter
(Filed: 22/12/2005)

The new Archbishop of York has compared houses and estates surrounded by walls and large gates to "prisons" that undermine the spirit of neighbourliness. Dr John Sentamu, the Church of England's second most senior cleric, said that people who built high fences to protect their properties had cut themselves off from their communities.

"High fences never make good neighbours," he said. He said he was determined that Bishopthorpe Palace, his imposing medieval home on the banks of the River Ouse, near York, would be "a place of welcome for all", especially the young. The building, which is set in nine acres of grounds and dates from 1241, is reached through an elaborate gatehouse built in 1765. His comments, made to local media this week, will reinforce his reputation as an outspoken cleric who is keen for the Church to recapture its missionary vision.

Dr Sentamu, the Church's first black archbishop, said he regretted that some of the Christian principles that had inspired him as a young man in Uganda appeared to have been eroded in this country. "I grew up with a sense of discipline and an awareness to care for your neighbour and your friend," he said. "The people who taught me about that were missionaries from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. The tragedy has been that, with the passage of time, all those things have been forgotten as we have pursued consumerism. We have become rich as a nation; we have built our own houses, built our fences. Some people are living in houses where boundaries are so safe, with big gates - that is a prison. How can they be anything but barriers to community?"

The archbishop said he had grown up as part of a supportive, extended family and when he worked in London he had encouraged Church members to become surrogate uncles and aunts to children who lacked relatives. "That dramatically changed the way in which people related to one another," he said. "So it is possible that we should be neighbourly to one another and to provide the kind of support which, had you been in the kind of culture that I come from, you would have had. We are each other's keeper and we should be able to care. If you know people who are disabled, people who are not well, people who live alone, why not knock on their door and, when the weather is getting very cold, say, 'Hello, how are you? How are you keeping? Can we do some shopping for you? Can we help you?' I want to create a culture in which I am not alone. But at the moment in this country there is a great loneliness."

Dr Sentamu also spoke of what he called BSE - not mad cow disease but Blame Someone Else. "A lot of us have a desire to clamour for human rights," he said. "For me, as a Christian, that means that I have the duty to do that which I ought to be doing, not simply getting what I want. This is a great nation and people should not simply say that 'things are terrible' but should say, 'This is our duty, our responsibility; we can make a difference.' "