De locis sanctis*
My father-in-law asked me an interesting question yesterday on our way to Canterbury: “What do Americans--specifically the Episcopalians in your parish--think about it?” I answered what I thought was his question by talking about how our parish had been praying for the bishops at the Lambeth Conference this month and how important it is for us, as an Episcopalian parish in Chicago, to belong to the Anglican communion as a whole. “But what about the cathedral itself?,” he asked. “Do they think about it at all?” I was embarrassed to admit that, as far as I know, the answer is no. Certainly, I have never thought much about the building myself. Indeed, until yesterday, when I got to see it for the first time, I had been convinced that it—that is to say, the medieval building in which I might have been professionally interested, if it were still there—had been destroyed in one of Europe’s more recent wars only to be replaced by a more modern, less appealing construction. Imagine my s...