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Civitas report calls for rethink of parishes

06 December 2024

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FURTHER “disempowerment” of parishes by the National Church Institutions should be challenged by the Ecclesiastical Committee, a new report from the think tank Civitas suggests.

Drawing substantially on criticisms offered by the Save the Parish movement, the report Restoring the Value of Parishes: The foundations of welfare, community and spiritual belonging in England argues that parishes have been deprived of power and assets, and are now “subject to the diocese and the executive power of the Archbishops’ Council”. It gives as an example the 1976 Endowment and Glebe Measure, which provided for the transfer of glebe land from parishes to the diocese for the benefit of diocesan stipends funds (News, 19 November 1976).

The Measure aimed to address inequalities in deployment and payment of clergy. Other factors included a drive to stop developers from making unscrupulous deals with PCCs, and a desire to manage land more strategically at diocesan level with a view to maximising returns. Among the recommendations put forward in the new report is a suggestion that the management of diocesan stipends funds be handed over to the Church Commissioners’ investment arm, with the “enhanced income” distributed back to dioceses in proportion to the value of their DSF.

Calling for a “rethink” of parish share, the report concludes that “the most effective way for dioceses to help parishes would be to reduce numbers of administrative staff.” Save the Parish has calculated that, based on the combined expenditure figures of the 42 dioceses, 21 per cent goes towards “diocesan support, training and administration”. It is estimated that reducing the current number of diocesan staff by even one quarter could pay for 1000 new stipendiary priests in parishes.

When it comes to the NCIs, the report says that Queen Anne’s Bounty (the scheme merged with the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to form the Church Commissioners) “must remain faithful to the original intention of the endowments by ensuring that mission projects work in support of parishes rather than against them”. The majority of strategic funding should be allocated to initiatives “which work either within or in direct collaboration with the parish”. The Church Commissioners should “give more money directly to funding parish ministry” and “contribute to the maintenance of parish buildings”.

It recommends that, “if the Church continues to disempower parishes — as it appears to do in the July 2024 draft of the National Church Governance Measure — the Ecclesiastical Committee can and should challenge them” (News, 12 July). It expresses concern about the Measure’s exclusion of PCCs from the definition of a “charity with a church ethos” in the clause that pertains to the charitable objects of the proposed new “Church of England National Services”, warning that: “If the Measure goes ahead, it is likely that these provisions will be interpreted as excluding parish churches from receiving funds distributed by the Church Commissioners altogether.”

On Wednesday, a Church House spokesperson said that proposals to amend this section of the Measure had been received by the Revision Commission, which expects to present its work to the General Synod in February.

Asked about the potential to deliver grants direct to parishes rather than to the “great bureaucratic system”, Carl Hughes, who chairs the Archbishops Council’s finance committee, told the General Synod in July that this would be an “administrative nightmare” (News, 12 July). Strategic Mission and Ministry Investment grants were expected to go to dioceses “and then to be applied in front-line mission and ministry, and we do clearly monitor that”.

Other recommendations in the report include the use of Church Commissioners’ land to build almshouses (“a far more focused and direct form of charitable contribution than giving money away to external organisations”), and “loosening” regulations around weddings, so that churches could charge market rates for couples without a connection to the parish. It draws on a proposal by the writer and biologist Rupert Sheldrake to suggest that landowners could donate or sell a parcel of land to parish churches to expand the room for burials, given that a “green burial” is still sought by many people.

The report, written by Esmé Partridge and launched on Wednesday, argues that the conditions are ripe for a renewal of the parish, which “could be in an ideal position to nurture and direct [a] renewed receptivity to the sacred, being a site not only of Christian faith but also the pre-Christian heritage of ancient yew trees and holy wells. If the Church wants to be more ‘relevant’, it should stop trying to reinvent itself . . . and rather embrace its role as a bastion of sacred tradition in a postmodern world.”

A spokesperson for the Church of England said: “We don’t recognise the picture painted by this report,” and referred to “the essential front line support dioceses provide to parishes across the country in everything from safeguarding to finance”.

They continued: “Contrary to the image the report portrays, Church of England churches have seen notable growth in the last year — with overall congregations passing a million again in 2023 — a tribute to the faithfulness of clergy, parish volunteers and parishioners across England in sharing the good news of Jesus Christ and serving their communities.”

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