Church closings and Monty Python, or can churches in the U.K. avoid the fate of the dead parrot?

One thing I have never been able to do so far is mention Monty Python in my faith page columns—until now.

When doing a follow-up to my earlier column about church closings, I discovered that Michael Palin, formerly of Monty Python, is vice president of the National Churches Trust in the United Kingdom.

“Right now, many church buildings are in danger of closure,” he wrote on the Every Church Counts website, a new effort to save the U.K.’s historic churches.

“Churches are a vital part of the UK’s history and we need to act now to prevent the loss of tremendously important local heritage.”

I ended the column with a line from the famous dead parrot sketch, played by Palin and John Cleese, and then wondered if churches in the UK—unlike that dead bird—can avoid the fate of having “kicked the bucket, shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible.” (Another Python reference!)

Read the column about how people in the U.K. are trying to save that county’s churches. including a former member of Monty Python.