200 Churches in Paris and elsewhere

 This small 19th century Anglican church is just up up the road from my mother's (tho we are Catholics), in the town centrally involved in the great Power Loom riots of 1826, though probably better known for the spinning jenny. Very nice pulpit, and a modern crucifix or two.

  For a change, here is a 20th century  poem  by e e cummings i am a little church(no great cathedral) far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities – i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest, i am not sorry when sun and rain make april my life is the life of the reaper and the sower; my prayers are prayers of earth’s own clumsily striving (finding and losing and laughing and crying)children whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness around me surges a miracle of unceasing birth and glory and death and resurrection: over my sleeping self float flaming symbols of hope, and i wake to a perfect patience of mountains i am a little church(far from the frantic world with its rapture and anguish)at peace with nature – i do not worry if longer nights grow longest; i am not sorry when silence becomes singing winter by spring, i lift my diminutive spire to merciful Him Whose only now is forever: standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence (welcoming hu...

The church of the patron saint of coin collectors... This church was recommended to me by my friend Guillaume – I must start taking requests, so if you have a church you want me to visit, let me know ( John dot mullen AT WANADOO dot FR). It was hard to find the entrance, and in my confusion I forgot to take a picture of the 90 foot high metal bell tower. The Saint Eloi church (the gentleman is sometimes known in English as St Eligius) was started in 1968 and is very modern. So modern that there isn’t even a wikipedia article in English on it – because church lovers generally feel more at home with ancient mystery and stuff. St Eloi is a metal structure covered in sheets of aluminium. Inside is rather austere : the stations of the cross merely Roman numerals, practically no statues. There is one statue though from the 1930s, which was made for the great 1937 exhibition, which shows St Eloi with a hammer and other tools for carpentry. The church is set among what look like so...

  Leeds RC Cathedral (St Anne’s cathedral)   Cheerleading for the martyrs   I used to live in Leeds in the 1980s, and I regularly change trains here deliberately ( on the way to visit my Mother) so I can have lunch with one of my best friends. I asked him to take me to a couple of churches and we started with the catholic cathedral (remember, people elsewhere, that most cathedrals in England, and all the ones which are over 500 years old,   are Anglican, not catholic). This cathedral, completed in 1904, has a fine statue which I think is St Anne   teaching Our Lady (her daughter), but I am not sure. There is also a Lampedusa cross, made of bits of wood from a shipwreck in which many refugees died on their way to try to start a new life in Europe. You will find a memorial to the Yorkshire martyrs, a bunch of guys and gals who were killed by Elizabeth the first because they were catholics. (In Bradford there is actually a school named after them, the Yor...