DESECRATION OF CHURCH

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25391, 14 January 1948, Page 7

DESECRATION OF CHURCH

DEVON PARISH OF THE REV. R. CLOUGH SIGNS OF BLACK MASS RITUAL (Special Correspondent N.ZJP.A.) (Rec. 7 p.m.) LONDON, January 13. , The Rev. Richard Clough, who recently had considerable publicity both in Britain and New Zealand because of his statements about conditions in New Zealand, is again in the news after events in his parish church of of St. John the Baptist at Yarcombe. Devon. On the morning after the Eve pf Twelfth Night (January 6), when the vicar visited the church, he found that it had been desecrated by an intruder who had apparently conducted a Black Mass ritual in the precincts. AH gravestones bearing the sign of the Cross had been overturned, an image of Christ had been placed head downwards in the doorway of the church, and inside the building hymn books had been turned face downwards. Altar candles and hangings had been burned, and the altar frontal reversed. Near one candle was found a singed white cat’s paws and burned Communion wafers. The collect for the First Sunday in Advent, which begins, “Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the powers of darkness and put upon us the armour of light,” had been torn out pf a prayer book, and the first lines were scored out with a pencil. On Sunday, as a result of consideration of the matter by the Bishop of Exeter, Mr Clough conducted a rare form of service known as “Intention of Reparation,” which is laid down to be conducted in a case where a church has been desecrated, but where the bishop does not consider that ir should be reconsecrated. A man named Jack Graham Makin, of Tonbridge, {Cent, has been arrested in connexion with the events in the church, and remanded on a charge of causing malicious damage. Mr Clough spent more than £l5OO to emigrate with his family by air to New Zealand last year, but returned to England almost immediately because he disliked the Dominion. His comments were publicised both here and in England. Mr Clough described as. “absurd” the demand that he should pay £550 tax before taking his £llOO car into New Zealand, ana resented being able to bring only £3OO worth of his £7OOO Worth of furniture into the country tax free? He told English journalists that the price of house property in New Zealand was terrific, and all the land appeared to be taken up. Houses rarely came on the market at all. Wages were high, but the cost of living was even higher; the hotel service was “abominable”: the cities were dingy and the streets dirty. Drinking and gambling were rife. Food, clothes, and eggs were almost as difficult to get as in England, and everything was much dearer, except tobacco. New Zealand, said Mr Clough, was just 100 years behind the times. He claimed be had been misled about conditions, but said he came back to England a “wiser man? England would be a far better place to live in than New Zealand in a few years’ time.