'They said that practitioners of violent crime pick on clergy especially.'

Steve Tomkins is worried about the possible demise of a religious institution

Sometimes two news stories come along together and seem to comment on each other. One example of this is the recent pair of stories about danger to the clergy.

Earlier this month, there was the dog collar story. National Churchwatch – a group that advises clergy on personal safety and keeping churches permanently open – got in the news by recommending that ministers don’t wear their dog collars when off duty.

They said that practitioners of violent crime pick on clergy especially. Presumably muggers expect them to turn the other cheek, and not to resist evil doers – while skipping the verse about ‘Do not carry gold, nor silver, nor money…’.

Accidents

I suspect the instinctive reaction from most of us was, “Oh come on. It’s health and safety gone mad. What next? Lollipop persons told not to step onto the street to avoid traffic accidents?”

But then comes the other story: a mentally ill Satanist is found guilty of stabbing to death Father Paul Bennett, of St Fagan's Church, in Trecynon, south Wales.

In this case, Father Paul was tragically killed when he stepped out of the vicarage door, so whether he was in a dog collar or not would have made no difference. And yet he was targeted purely because he was a random Christian minister, unknown to his killer.

So it seems to confirm National Churchwatch’s warning only too well. Clergy are at risk.

National Churchwatch say that 5 vicars have been murdered in the last decade. That figure in itself is not surprising, given the 8000 killings in the general population in that time.

More striking, if you’ll forgive the unfortunate choice of words, are the figures for assault. National Churchwatch’s figures suggest that in a two-year-period 12% of clergy are physically assaulted.

Statistics

By comparison, according to the national crime statistics there are 1 million offences ‘against the person’ recorded every year in England and Wales. 1 million people assaulted would work out as 0.3% of the population.

Of course, most assaults don’t get reported, but even taking that into account, it still looks like putting on dog collar can be a dangerous business.

It would be a shame if this fact meant ministers felt unable to get dogged up. The clerical collar is surely a sign that invites people to talk, and it seems to work.

But if it is also an invitation to take a pop, then the church does indeed need to find ways of protecting them.