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“Considerable resources have been extracted from the parish system since 1976 to fund the current diocesan system. No wonder that so many parishes are struggling
to continue their ministry. After the National Institutions Measure of 1998, which gave to the Archbishops’ Council control of spending the funds produced by the
Church Commissioners, one significant loss was the Commissioners’ ability to make direct grants to benefices.”
“This was not the first time Sir James has intervened in the debate over the future direction of the national Church. In a letter to The Times in October last year, he called Leicester diocese’s decision ‘to fold 234 parishes into the embrace of 20 to 25 huge groups’ a ‘sad day for the Church of England’.
He accused the CofE of behaving ‘like a socialist republic: demanding increasing “tax” (parish share) from dwindling numbers of churchgoers, then spending too much of it on its own bureaucracy. Moreover, as The Times reported last month, in 2017-2020 it spent £248 million on “renewal and reform” projects that failed to increase church attendance.”
WATCH THE PROCEEDINGS HERE We are aware of audio-visual issues at the beginning of the stream. We are working hard to produce a full transcript of all the day’s proceedings. As these become ready, they will be posted here. Thank you for your understanding! Session 1: In Conversation- The Rev’d Read more…
“One of the greatest joys and strengths of our Church of England is its parish structure- we have a presence in every single place. What a mission opportunity this is. Like the Head of our Church, the Queen herself, our Church serves the whole nation. As we celebrate her 70-year reign, I wonder what will be left of our Parish system in another 70 years without many more of us stepping up to fight for it.”
“…despite many diocesan denials, Save The Parish (Cornwall) is correct that the finances and operations of TM and OTW are inextricably intertwined, and there must be a full honest and transparent audit of them to ensure millions of pounds are not wasted, many more priests are not axed, and our rural churches not closed. What the above also shows is that Save the Parish is also correct that OTW is very much a bishop-led, top-down, not bottom-up, process.”
“We need the archbishops to accept the desperate plight of their parishes, recognising that without them the Church of England is nothing, put their preservation ahead of political interventions and set in motion the radical restructuring of the dioceses proposed here, which is implied but not expressed in their paper. Without it, we in the parishes will continue our slide into poverty and a very worthwhile proposal for reform will gather dust in the beautiful new library at Lambeth Palace.”
“[The archbishops] must also follow up on their commitment to consider what I think is fundamentally wrong with the parish system: there are too many dioceses. It is impossible to justify the present 42 when, 200 years ago, in the Church’s heyday, there were 26.”
Frontline parish ministry is tough and getting tougher. Clergy cuts mean ever greater demands on the dwindling band of vicars or ‘priests-in-charge’ often running around several churches. How many CofE bishops know how it feels looking after multiple churches with the growing burden of bureaucratic demands from diocesan HQs?”
BRUTAL cuts” to clergy posts in the diocese of Truro are on the horizon, a group of concerned parishioners has warned. The group of eight, from four of the diocese’s 12 deaneries, includes several PCC members and a lay member of the General Synod.
Campaigners from Save the Parish (STP) have reacted to today’s announcement by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York of a new £1.2 billion, three-year fund to deliver grant money for “the revitalisation of parish and local ministry.”