Rural areas 'being put at risk'

Rural communities have been let down, says Dr David Hope

Rural communities are threatened by a government which does not understand them, the Archbishop of York Dr David Hope has said in his Christmas sermon.

He said it was often left to the Church to provide a focus for village life.

At the end of a year in which Anglicans were divided by the issue of sexuality, Dr Hope also called on the community to live "together with and in difference".

He said the media focus on the intense row obscured the good work the Church did around the world.

'Increasingly dire'

The archbishop has spoken up for rural communities before, but the message in his Christmas Day sermon was unusually blunt, said the BBC's religious affairs correspondent Robert Pigott.

Dr Hope said the plight for many living in rural England was "increasingly dire".

He said people felt threatened "by a government which they say simply fails to understand the country way of life".

The Church was often the only remaining centre of community life, he added.

Openly gay

The Archbishop said the row about sexuality had overshadowed the role of the Church in the countryside and elsewhere.

Dr David Hope says the work of the Church has been obscured

The Anglican community appeared close to a split as the row reached its height with the consecration in America of bishop Gene Robinson, who is openly gay.

In Britain gay priest Canon Jeffrey John turned down the post of Bishop of Reading amid a furore about his appointment.

Dr Hope said many people "looked on in disbelief wondering quite what all the fuss is about", as the heated debate continued.

As a result, he argued, people wondered whether the Church had "lost sight of more pressing and vital priorities for our world and its peoples".

Hand of friendship

Turning his attention to the conflicts around the world, the Archbishop said many countries were still stalked by the "darkness of war and terrorism".

He said the conflict in Iraq had led to "more casualties in peace than in the war".

His comments came as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, was expected to extend the hand of friendship to the Muslim faith in his address.

The leader of Roman Catholics in England and Wales, the Archbishop of Westminster Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, will not give a Christmas homily this year as he is recovering from a hip replacement.