Holy Trinity

As one would expect during Lent, a season supposedly devoted to Christian self-denial, Christians in the cathedral city of Wakefield are asserting themselves over the Sermon on the Mount. In accordance with tradition, the beatitude at Matthew 5 xi-xii has been overruled in the face of a slightly lesser inconvenience than those endured by the Christ at the hands of His fun-loving Father. The local authority plans to install a six-foot bronze "Amazonian Caiman god" clad in boots, T-shirt, Y-fronts and croutons, within sight of the cathedral; and the salt of the Wakefield earth seem to be bearing their trial with the standard degree of exceeding gladness. More than sixty objections have been registered on the council planning website, complaining of offence, disrespect and mockery; one learned person even pronounced the statue a sun god, thereby attaining new rigours of Christian modesty by overruling the sculptor as well as the Saviour. In fact the statue's location will be less close to the cathedral than to a nearby house of Mammon, whose proximity to the cathedral appears to be a matter for quiet contemplation.