Ruth Gledhill weblog: Casino 'will imprison your soul' says Archbishop
Tuesday, 30 January 2007

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has led Church of England bishops in attacking the plans for a supercasino in Manchester, pictured here. Dr Williams, speaking at Lambeth Palace at a press conference with Patriarch Bartholomew who heads the Orthodox Church, said: “It’s quite clear from all the research figures that gambling is a more and more popular form of addiction in this country, and we must not underrate the seriousness of that."

He continued: “All addictions are imprisonments for the soul and therefore any form of addiction is something that ought to be of concern to the population at large and, as to the religious population in particular. It seems to me that any large, high profile development is going to attract attention and draw people in here. I know that the area of Manchester where this development is planned to take place, in Beswick, is one which has a long history of deprivation which is going through regeneration at the moment. I happen to have quite direct contact with one of the primary schools there, so it’s not quite an academic interest.” the rest