Reprinted with kind permission of the Ampleforth Abbey Trust.
The European Parliament voted for a new EU Transparency Directive on 12th June. Companies will now have to disclose more financial information about their activities. According to the European Commission ‘Civil society would benefit from increased transparency and could hold governments accountable to the revenues received from companies for exploiting natural resources’ ( European Commission MEMO Brussels, 12 June 2013). In short, transparency is anti-corruption.
On Sunday 16th June I gave a reading, chosen by Revd. Peter Cook, at a service to celebrate the renovation of the windows of Stanhoe Church. The reading was from the Book of Revelation which describes the New Jerusalem coming down from God. It contains the line……’the city of pure gold, like clear glass’, Rev. 21; 18.
On 24th June I joined a small group, organised by Fr. Michael Johnstone, on retreat at Ampleforth Abbey. During one of his set talks, the Prior, Fr. Terence Richardson, showed us slides of the church’s resurrection window showing Jesus rising from the tomb, radiating transparent gold. Jesus is transparent gold, and he is the father of transparent gold services.
In November I was asked to speak at a Macmillan Cancer Support charity dinner. I said this:
‘Whatever changes befall the NHS, we should be aiming to provide a service with the quality of transparent gold, equally available to rich and poor alike’.
Peter Coates