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Church leaders have hit back at stinging criticism of a BBC’s Songs of Praise special edition recorded in a refugee camp in Calais in France.
The setting is a makeshift Ethiopian Orthdodox Church, built by volunteers in the “New Jungle” settlement, in and near which 5000 people from Eritrea, Libya and Syria live.
The programme, which will air on August 16, has been slated for sympathising with people who want to migrate illegally to the United Kingdom.
Critics have said it is a waste of the UK television licence fee and is political activism.
The Daily Express and the Sun both carried critical front pages of the BBC programme’s decision to film in the church
The shanty towns near Calais are close to a Channel Tunnel entrance.
The Church of England’s Bishop Nick Baines praised the BBC decision.
The bishop said the church is for the poor and vulnerable and Christian faith is about God in the real world.
“If we don’t like being exposed to worship from Calais, then it is for us to face the hard question of why – not simply to project this on to the soft target of the BBC.”
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, made it clear in a tweet that he fully supported the programme.
Rev. Michael Sadgrove, dean of Durham, applauded the BBC’s decision.
“What’s the answer to the scornful Pharisees at the Sun? It’s pretty obvious. Just ask what Jesus would do,” Rev. Sandgrove said.
“He would be in the Jungle, of course, just as he kept company with a lot of other people the establishment of his day found it difficult to tolerate.”
A BBC spokesman said: “Church leaders from the Pope to the Archbishop of Canterbury have spoken out about the human response to migration and asylum which is a subject of interest to churchgoers up and down the country.”
Catholic charities are at the forefront of efforts to support to migrants in the Calais shanty towns.
The Catholic charity Secours Catholique-Caritas France has pooled resources with Médecins du Monde, Solidarité Nationale and Secours Islamique to help migrants camped among the sand dunes.
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