"[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."
Read moreFrontline 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?"
Read moreBRUTAL 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.
Read more
“What we vicars need is a bishop who, like an elder sibling will swoop into our parishes and help sort out nonsense, and if required (safeguarding rules permitting) give us a hug. Bishops should be able to hang around in a parish for a few days, not just a few hours. In my mind a bishop should be to the vicarage family like a grandparent who says to the vicar and his wife, “You are overworking, so tonight I’ll look after the kids so you two can go off to the cinema.””
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.”
Ahead of expected details about the upcoming Triennial Budget to be published by the Archbishops’ Council, campaigners from the grassroots group Save the Parish say they are looking forward to the budget reflecting the Archbishops’ statements in support of the parish system.
The Bishop of Truro has curtly refused to meet campaigners fighting church cuts – while setting up a costly new unit to force through controversial multimillion-pound changes in the Diocese.
The Bishop of Truro, the Rt Rev Philip Mounstephen, this week refused outright to meet supporters of Save The Parish, who called for an open, honest and transparent audit of Diocesan finances, including costly evangelical initiatives like Transforming Mission in five towns in Cornwall.
A new Cornish campaign group has called on the Bishops of Truro and St Germans to stop wasting vast sums of money on bloated administration and failing high-cost new schemes while they are imposing brutal cuts to clergy and churches across the county.
The biggest difference to my mind is the decision to stop cutting clergy numbers. The effect
on clergy morale, and levels of trust between parishes and the wider diocese is
remarkable. It helps that we have a genuinely supportive senior team.
Dioceses, by and large, have failed to manage their housekeeping, some indeed facing bankruptcy, all the while begging for more and more money from beleaguered parishes facing rising costs in their local churches, businesses, and families. Given this record, it would surely not be wise to give them more?