During the month of December 2009 the Church of England was in an uproar as one of its Reverends was giving a sermon at Sunday Service teaching us that during times of economic depression it was ok to steal products from shops – so long as they were taken from large national stores rather than small family owned shops and businesses.

The Reverend Tim Jones, a parish priest in the North of England says he was merely pointing out that when “every sociable acceptable avenue has been shut down, then the only avenue left is the unacceptable one”. Surely as a member of the faith HE must know that one of the Commandments is “thou shalt not steal” in-fact it is No 8 in a very short list of ten, so why is this man of the cloth telling less fortunate people to steal?

The Church of England’s Archdeacon Richard Steal sent out an immediate response pointing out that the Church does not advise anyone to break the law in anyway, they realise that there are failings within the social communities but shoplifting is not the way to overcome these problems.

With this priest pointing out that shoplifting is ok how many ‘deprived’ people will be jumping on the ‘social deprivation bandwagon’ as an excuse to feed their habits?