The Curmudgeon

YOU'LL COME FOR THE CURSES. YOU'LL STAY FOR THE MUDGEONRY.

Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Matters of the Spirit

One of Rupert Murdoch's less reputable tabloids today devoted most of its front page to the pressing spiritual problem of a minority religious sect: "A cash crisis in the Church of England is forcing bishops to consider radical moves including cutting clergy numbers by up to a third and making worshippers meet in each other's homes." A report to the General Synod suggests, among other things, training more people to work unpaid - a handy niche here for women priests, perhaps.

The spiritual descendants of the Twelve Apostles face the problem of falling membership and rising costs, "in particular the costs of keeping the Church's thousands of Grade 1 listed buildings in good repair and of paying clergy pensions and stipends". The Church's interesting interpretation of Matthew 10, verses ix-x apparently led it, during the 1980s, to lose "millions of pounds in property", which has led to a dwindling in "funds available from the centre to support parishes".

The Church still has assets worth more than four billion pounds, but denationalisation and the use of this wealth in the service of God's good work has been ruled out for the "foreseeable future", on the sensible grounds that it would cost the Church money. Instead, the Church has increased its demands on parishioners' pockets in order "to enable their church to pay its quota to the diocese" and in order to keep clergy pensions at the level decreed by their Saviour. Individuals, it seems, can live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God; but the Church must have its bread. God helps those who help themselves.

The report concludes that "The structures and systems of the Church still bear the imprint of a pastoral era which assumed a predominantly conforming population." Even the Church of England must one day resign itself to the disappearance of the pastoral rack, screw and stake, those instruments of faith so well suited to encouraging prompt payment of tithes. "The Church of England," says the report, "needs to be turned around by God and move in a different direction." Apparently someone other than God has steered the Church of England to its present pass. I wonder who that could have been.

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