James Burnell-Nugent suggests that the MPM review does nothing to restore trust with the parishes and should be sent back to be reworked. None of the review group’s suggestions to improve trust have been taken on board by the authors.
Jonathan Baird writes about clergy occupying administrative roles rather than being frontline vicars. Read the original article here
“Even the Church of England’s 2021 paper GS 2222 acknowledged (para. 35) that “Anecdotal evidence from Wales suggests a super-parish type model has not worked well.” It added “but there is an absence of hard data.” Where is there any empirical evidence that mega-parishes are more viable and sustainable than the local parish system?”
“Pressed by Mr Lunn about whether the Archbishops’ Council recognised that dioceses were not “trying to undermine the mission of the Church”, but had policies “dictated by their finance or lack thereof”, Bishop Seeley agreed: “One of the things that is going on here is we have got a long-term Vision and Strategy and short-term pressures around finance, and those two timetables don’t meet. . .
“We need to try to find a way to mitigate the current situation that is prompting dioceses to consider cutting posts . . . through some form of financial provision.” It remained unclear exactly how many posts dioceses were cutting, he said.”
Should the Church be spearheading the multicultural nation that the UK has become? Read original article here
“And if we’re going to promise to ‘Save the parish’, let’s use those ‘limiting factors’ as our banners: ‘a building and a stipend and long, costly college-based training for every…
Charles Moore argues the case for the local parish and Anglican role model. Read original article here