IT’S been a bad week for the baby Jesus.

First of all, Mr Pope’s visit to Ireland was a damp squib with many of the locals choosing to have an abortion or a bit of homosexual sex, rather than turning up to hear what he had to say.

Then, on this side of the water, came news that despite great efforts to shore up support, the number of people putting on a hat on a Sunday morning and toddling into the village to hear the vicar drone on about a long dead fisherman, continues to fall.

Only 47 per cent of people in Britain claim to have a religious faith and of those, only a tiny proportion go to church.

Figures show that when the 16,000 Anglican churches are ranked by size of congregation, the lowest 4,000 have an average of just 20 regular worshippers.

Worse still, the smallest 800 can only expect to see nine people on the pews every week. Since 1969, 2,000 churches have closed or been demolished and it’s tricky to know what can be done to halt the tide of apathy.

Many churches are listed buildings which means they can’t be altered. And even if they can, it’s hard to know what you’d put in there to replace the pews and the pulpit.

One suggestion is that post offices could be installed but that shows how out of touch the C of E has become.

Have they never heard of email? You might as well turn the church into a library. Because no one under the age of 85 needs one of those either.

It’s young people that the Church must attract if it wants to survive so it must look at what young people want. Which is sex, usually.

Many can’t afford their own homes which means they have to resort to the car or the back of a nightclub when they are feeling frisky.

Could the Church not help out here, with some booths in the vestry? And music. There’s no song that wouldn’t be improved by some gospel sampling — the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, they’d all agree with that.

I have literally no idea who Kanye West is but I bet if the Vicar of Dibley booked him to perform his song, Jesus Walks, on Sunday afternoon, she’d have more than nine people in the pews.

Especially if she was serving a new cocktail called the Blood of Christ. Red wine and an energy drink, on the rocks. Kids love that sort of thing.

Sadly though, the Church of England will do none of these things. It’ll carry on doing what it’s been doing since it had no rivals in the entertainment space.

Maybe it might open a cafe or a post office or start yoga classes on a Monday morning. But if it wants to thrive, it needs to put all that walking on water stuff in the background, and turn itself into a home-grown version of Ibiza.