England’s Historic Cathedrals Turn to Pop Concerts and Silent Discos| National Catholic Register

 CANTERBURY, England — “Candlelight concerts” are taking place every week this fall in many of Britain’s ancient, historic and once-Catholic cathedrals, but these are not lofty performances of sacred or even classical music. 

In Worcester Cathedral, founded in 680, rebuilt by St. Wulfstan, and the burial place of King John who issued the Magna Carta, the late pop singer Whitney Houston’s greatest hits will be performed. On other nights, the once-hallowed nave will be the setting for cover bands playing songs by the Eagles, Coldplay and Tina Turner.

Selby Abbey in Yorkshire, which survived Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries and is famous for featuring the 14th-century “Washington Window,” which inspired the U.S. flag, will become the venue for the Beatles and Queen tribute bands in October. 

A Luther Vandross impersonator performed in September in the nave of St. Albans Cathedral, the oldest site of continuous Christian worship in Britain that stands on the burial place of Britain’s first martyr, St. Alban. 

Meanwhile, Wells Cathedral, founded in 1175 as the first entirely Gothic-style cathedral in Britain, will be the venue for an imitation David Bowie concert on Nov. 21.

Every medieval cathedral in England appears to be hosting these concerts, except for two: Westminster Abbey and Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford. The events, aimed principally at generating much-needed funds, are commercially operated by a Spanish company called “Fever” that introduced them in early 2021 with classical music. The concerts then expanded, becoming pop and rock cover bands a year later. The Register reached out to the company for comment, but it had not responded by press time.

Arguably more controversial than the candlelight concerts are “silent discos,” organized by another company, London-based MEGA Events, and which have been taking place in some of England’s most historic cathedrals for the past couple of years. One of the most recent was in Canterbury, for centuries England’s mother Church and where St. Thomas Becket was martyred, held on the Solemnity of the Assumption. The entertainment involves partygoers wearing headphones and waving strobe lights as they dance to pop music from the 1980s and ’90s over the tombs of deceased noble citizens.

Canterbury Cathedral’s most recent disco featured multiple bars and stalls in the nave’s side aisles selling alcohol and merchandise. The dean’s office stressed this all took place away from the site of St. Thomas Becket’s martyrdom in 1170. The historic cathedrals of St. Albans, Truro, Durham and Salisbury are also among those hosting these discos — coined “raves in the nave” by their critics. MEGA Events has been contacted for comment. 

Online reaction to the recent Canterbury disco — its second since 2024 — was overwhelmingly negative, including from Anglicans. 

“I abhor this,” said Adrian Hilton, an Anglican commentator, responding to the Canterbury disco on X. “It is the desecration of a sacred space.” Tim Dieppe, head of public policy for Christian Concern, an evangelical Christian advocacy group, commented that the Church of England “no longer believes in the attracting power of the gospel, and resorts to secular music instead.” 

Fading Opposition

In 2024, a petition against the first silent discos drew more than 3,000 signatures, and a prayer vigil was held outside Canterbury Cathedral. But the opposition has since faded, and the discos have now become “regular fixtures,” lamented Cajetan Skowronski, who organized those protests. 

“Now we are invited to make St. Paul’s Cathedral a nightclub and dance on the tombs of national heroes like Nelson, Wellington, Wren and Fleming,” he observed, referring to the announcement Sept. 1 that St. Paul’s, the mother church of London’s Anglican diocese, had signed a four-year deal with a London nightclub owner to stage music events. The 18th-century English Baroque Anglican cathedral, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, has been the setting for many events of national historical importance. 

“How long before we drunkenly trample over the graves of the late Queen Elizabeth II in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, at the invitation of the Church of England?” Skowronski asked. “No serious nation behaves like this with its sacred places. We are like goblins descended from giants, running amok in their glorious temples.” Lord Horatio Nelson’s descendants have called it an insult to his memory and a “sad reflection on where spiritual integrity and Christianity are today.”

Father Gerald Murray, a canonist at St. Joseph’s Church, New York, said the “profane” use of these churches, many of which had once belonged to the Catholic Church, is “scandalous and regrettable.” A church building “is a house of worship of God, not a convenient or charming venue for dancing, dining and secular music,” he told the Register. “These churches were built to promote religious practice and that should be respected.” 

The overriding reason for hosting these events is — by the Church of England’s own admission — to generate capital so they can survive. “Cathedrals receive no regular funding from government, and very little from the Church of England, so we must be imaginative and proactive in securing these ancient and treasured places for the future while continuing our daily round of prayer and praise,” said Rev. Jo Kelly-Moore, dean of St. Albans and chairwoman of the Association of English Cathedrals. “Cathedrals face significant financial pressure, with around three-quarters operating in deficit,” she told the Register. 

Andrea Tadiwala, executive support officer to the dean of Canterbury Cathedral, contended that the discos introduce the cathedral to people who might never have entered it before. She also asserted that the nave has been held since medieval times for “many activities in addition to worship” — although historians stress these were often opposed by bishops and especially the Church Fathers. The feedback they had received has been “overwhelmingly positive,” she told the Register.  

Asked if Dame Sarah Mullally, the archbishop of Canterbury, would share her views on these events, a spokeswoman told the Register she was “away and so will not be commenting on this.” 

Writing on his Substack, Gavin Ashenden, a Catholic convert and former Anglican vicar, said the discos amounted to a profound desecration, derived from a fundamental difference in understanding between Catholics and Protestants of time and space. In Catholic sacramental theology, he wrote, the Mass makes Christ’s sacrifice present — an “invasion of time by eternity” — while a Protestant understanding treats worship and sacred buildings chiefly as memorial, meeting place and usable space. 

Ashenden went on to contrast Reformation-era iconoclasm, which openly destroyed images and relics on theological grounds, with what he calls this subtler modern iconoclasm: retaining the fabric of the cathedral while emptying it of sacred meaning and repurposing it as an atmospheric venue. The latter, he believes, is worse, as it amounts to “the desecration of the spirit and holiness” of the cathedral, “polluting the place with a different spirit, that of Dionysius, the pagan god of sex and dance.” 

He added that we live in an age “that has lost its sense of respect for the things of God, and that considers that entertainment, not believing and worshipping God, is man’s principal interest and concern.” Others, such as Riccardo Cascioli, editor-in-chief of the Catholic daily La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, have tied these events to a serious crisis of faith that affects the entire Christian world, including Catholics.  

Catholic Bishops: No Comment

The Catholic bishops of England and Wales preferred not to comment on this use of once-Catholic places of worship. 

“On this matter we would not want to presume to speak for the Church of England, whose members and leaders are best placed to explain their own position,” a spokeswoman told the Register.

One question being asked is whether these concerts, as profane as many view them to be, are as sacrilegious as the simulated communions that have long taken place in these cathedrals that ceased to be Catholic at the Reformation. Canonists told the Register that, from a Catholic perspective, as Anglican rites are invalid and rooted in the continuing sacrilege of the Reformation, they are not simulating Catholic sacraments as Anglicans remain outside the Church and are, therefore, not under canonical ecclesiastical law.

By contrast, comparable abuses in Catholic churches may be both grave sins and canon-law offenses, even if discipline is sometimes neglected. The key distinction, they stress, echoing Ashenden’s point, is that Catholic teaching still treats such abuses as deviations, whereas Anglican practice is said to accept secular use as normal, revealing an ever-growing loss of faith, reverence and transcendence that began centuries ago. The company Fever conspicuously organizes only classical music candlelight concerts in Spain’s Catholic cathedrals, not pop and rock bands.

And yet despite canonical constraints, the Catholic Church has not been immune to such events, also throughout her history. The difference, due to them being recognized as deviations and breaches of canon law, is that they have often been swiftly curtailed. 

Church art historian Elizabeth Lev recalled how, in the 17th century, Flemish artists held toga parties over the mausoleum of St. Costanza, mistaking it for the tomb of Bacchus, the Roman god of wine, agriculture and fertility. “This tells us that bad manners and stupidity are not confined to our era,” she told the Register, but noted that Pope Clement XIV “squelched the practice in 1720.” 

More recently, Lev noted that the Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome was temporarily closed in 2011, after nightclub events were held on the premises for “friends of Santa Croce,” including the singer Madonna. After briefly closing the basilica, the Vatican removed the Cistercian community that ran it. 

Other Catholic cathedrals have also been the setting for some profane events, notably in 2019, when St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna sanctioned a concert for homosexual activists to take place in its nave. “I am afraid this is a growing phenomenon that will not end, including in Catholic churches,” Father Murray said. 

For Lev, perhaps the best way to put a halt to these events is for people “to go back to supporting their churches, to attending them, and not frequenting the sacred-space-turned-profane and explaining why it is ‘not cool’ to do so.”

“I think if we want others to respect our space, we need to respect it ourselves,” she added. “Not many mosques get turned into discos.”