Chad:
Patron Saint of Disputed Elections?

AT the beginning of December, last year, we were suddenly inundated with 'hits' (visits to our website) from the USA. This was during the legal wrangling in the States over who had, in fact, won their Presidential Election.

The dispute, as you will probably remember, centred around ballot-paper chads - those confetti-like pieces that voters were supposed to punch out of their ballot cards to indicate their choice of candidate. Confusion spread due to the apparently unforeseen situation of chads which were still hanging (not fully detached), or which were sometimes only pregnant or even merely dimpled. Americans, facing the prospect of no immediate decision from their own judiciary, turned to the greater authority of the Internet for guidance.

At this point, God intervened - and a large number of those entering 'chad' into Internet search engines were directed not to any site providing a useful political commentary on the situation, but rather to our own church website, telling the story of St. Chad, the seventh-century bishop of the Saxon kingdom of Mercia.

Not very relevant? Well . . . actually . . . yes. It so happens that just as Bush's election as US President was disputed, Chad's own appointment as Bishop of York was also the subject of a dispute.

This was picked up on by the Washington Times, which went on to contrast Bush's and Gore's bickering with Chad's response to his situation, which was to step down with humility:

If you know I have not duly received episcopal ordination, I willingly resign the office, for I never thought myself worthy of it; but, though unworthy, in obedience submitted to undertake it

The story of the newly found 'Patron Saint of Disputed Elections' spread through the world's media like wildfire, and the number of visitors to our website rocketed. In contrast to our usual four or five per day, on Wednesday, December 6th, the site received over 7,000 hits.

Many of our unexpected visitors took the opportunity to sign our online guestbook - some asking for our prayers, many simply expressing their exasperation - and it now forms an interesting historical record of people's thought, hopes and feelings at this time.

For us at St. Chad's, it was a busy few days as we dealt with virtually non-stop phone calls, gave comments to the press and took part in radio interviews. Our world-wide fame was, of course, only short-lived and the level of interest in our website quickly returned to more a more normal level, but it resulted in some modest donations to our Millennium Appeal, and, more importantly, the opportunity to give Christian witness and ministry to a truly world-wide audience.


Learn more

A special section of the St. Chad's website was set up to present the facts about St. Chad (as well as those all-important chads that started visitors flocking to our site) together in one place.

Find out about St. Chad (and the chads) and take a look at some of the many comments in our guestbook.

• What is a chad?

• Who is St. Chad?

• So is Chad the patron saint of
• disputed elections?

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