Welcome to the UK column, listeners.
I am delighted to be here in the depths of Cornwall and I've been
invited to sit with a gentleman called Ross.
We're in an area called Carnbrae and the subject really is, is
what's happening in the Church of England with the Church of
England in Cornwall. So Ross, thank you very much for
inviting me down. And where do we begin with this
little story? I, I think the first place is
for you to tell us a little bit about, about the church, because
a lot of people aren't engaged with the church.
They're not engaged with the Church of England.
So how long have you been associated with the Church of
England? And what, why do you think it's
it's been an important part of your life?
I've been engaged with the Church of England for actually
about 40 years if I come to think about it.
I grew up attending church but mostly non conformist churches
and then when I was in my very early 30s, I started going to
the Church of England Church where I lived.
Sometimes there've been periods of my life which have been
extremely difficult and the church has been a place of great
solace for me. It's been a great help to me and
I met one particularly charismatic and understanding
clergyman who did a lot for me and going to church regularly
and church life has become very, very important for me.
Ross, Cornwall has a very rich history with regard to the
Christian Church and I I don't know the exact figure myself,
but how how many churches are there in Cornwall do you think?
Well, I would think that there are just over 200 actual
churches, but I think we shouldn't lose sight of the fact
that there are 300 plus Celtic Christian sites in Cornwall.
And I would just like to quote from Canon Pat Robson who
developed the Celtic Christian Pilgrimage, which is being used
by by lots of people who either live or who come on holiday to
Cornwall. And these are churches, she
says, founded by ancient Saints searching out quiet places to be
alone with God. Over hundreds and hundreds of
years they have become steeped in love and prayer and long to
offer sanctuary to everyone who needs it.
So these. Are.
The, these are the, the Celtic Christian sites in Cornwall and
that gives us a feel for people using the churches who are not
necessarily part of the regular congregation.
And that's something I, I think that we should be bearing in
mind. Who goes into churches when
there's no one else there? They don't just sit there empty
all day, every day people quietly go into them.
They write prayer requests. They sit quietly.
They are places of sanctuary. And I understand that some
people will deliberately choose to go into a church when nobody
else is there. They they're not regular
churchgoers, but they do enjoy. Being able to go into a church
when it's it's, it's a. Quiet place that they can access
on their own is. Is that correct?
That's that's absolutely correct.
For various reasons, I have cause to go into church at times
which are not when services are being held.
And invariably either someone is already there or someone may
come in while I am there and they just want to sit quietly.
They might, they might want to walk around and look at the
stained glass, but they might just want to sit there quietly
and have their own thoughts. And that is the aspect of
offering sanctuary to everyone who needs it.
Now you, you contacted me because you were starting to see
changes in the Church of England and you were starting to perhaps
be a bit concerned about the direction in which the Church
was going. So can you tell us a little bit
about what, what you were seeing what, what is the Church of
England trying to do at the moment and why?
Why would that start to raise some concerns with you?
Well, I think the project that's named on the way, which began,
interestingly enough, in Cornwall during lockdown, there
are very similar projects in other parts of the country which
we can mention later on. But in Cornwall it began during
lockdown, which was a very difficult time, when the
Archbishop of Canterbury had closed all the churches so that
even clergy themselves, clergymen, clergy, women, were
not permitted inside their own churches, even on their own.
They were not permitted to go into their church buildings at
all. Those services were happening.
Obviously no congregations got together to talk about things.
And yet the diocese began this new project called On the Way,
which is a project which amalgamates churches, creates
large collections of parishes and tries to turn them into one
under only one ordained member of the clergy, with a number of
other people who are not ordained.
And this takes away centuries of the organisation of the Church
of England whereby there are ordained clergy in individual
parishes. So individual parishes lose
their own clergy person and Cornwall is very attached to its
parishes. As you drive around in the car,
you can see notices by the side of the road that says you are
entering such and such parish. The whole idea of a parish with
a clergy person to look after what's called the cure of souls,
that whole concept is being abolished.
OK, So we'll say for the ordinary listener and
particularly somebody who hasn't been involved with the church
before, the original system was each church, you correct me if I
haven't got this right, but each church would have its own vicar.
And that vicar as well as doing obviously running church
services were, was particularly there to look after the pastoral
care of the parish itself. So this was a person who was,
was working in the church in a spiritual way, but was also
working in the parish council, I'm sorry, in the parish itself
in order to look after people in the parish.
So we have one vicar, one church, 1 vicar, and now we have
a project which is effectively saying if I've got this right,
that we're going to have one vicar from multiple churches.
Is that is that right? Yes, that is that is correct.
Obviously over quite a long period of time churches have
been put together in a much smaller way.
There are quite a lot of areas of Cornwall where there isn't
just one clergy person, 1 vicar with one church.
There may have been vicars looking after perhaps 4
churches, which is quite a lot of work.
But now it's being increased to in one instance in Cornwall,
about 22 churches with with I believe 2 ordained members of
the clergy. But it's, it is unmanageable
from unrecognisable from the system that used to be when a,
when a, a member of the clergy comes to a parish as a new vicar
or a new rector, in some, in some instances, one of the
things that they promised to do is to have what's called the
cure of souls. And this is a very long
standing, quite old fashioned sort of expression, which means
that that person is responsible for the soul of every person who
lives in that parish. So it doesn't matter whether
you're a churchgoer or whether you're not a churchgoer, the
vicar actually is there for you if you don't go to church on
Sundays, you can still have your child baptised in church and a
lot of people still do. You can still be married in
church. But those two instances are
going to become much more difficult if you have one vicar
looking after a vast number of churches, which is what On the
Way proposes and in fact is what is actually happening in
Cornwall now. So it is impossible for the
clergy to look after the souls of eight parishes, for instance.
Ross, you're very concerned about the loss of trained clergy
under the diocese plan on the way.
But of course there are many people who are not are not the
fully trained. Clergy men and women who do an
awful, awful amount of very good work for the church.
So can you tell us about some of the of these other people that
work in the church environment? Well, the most the most obvious
group who are not actually ordained are the lay, the lay
ministers known as readers. They they have been working in
the Church of England for a very long time.
They do a wonderful job in supporting clergy in parishes,
but the prospective lay ministers in the on the way plan
are. That's a different set up
altogether. The.
Proposal is that they have quite a bit of responsibility for
individual churches to a much greater degree than there's been
previously. One of the big questions is how
much training are they actually going to receive?
If there is one clergy clergy person responsible for anything
from from let's say 8 churches up to between the 22 down in
West Cornwall, there's going to be much greater reliance on lay
ministry. I think it is, is one of the
worrying aspects of On the Way is understanding how much
responsibility these people will actually be given.
Certainly they're they're going to be taking services, but they
will not be able to administer the Holy Communion, one of the
sacraments of of the Church of England.
OK, so there's the lay ministers, the readers, but
there's also, I think you would, what would you call them, lay
people in general who come and do good, good work with the
church. And then of course, they're
retired clergy. How do they How do those two
groups fit in? As far as the retired clergy are
concerned, the Diocese of Truro wouldn't be able to have
churches holding anything like the number of services that they
do at the moment if retired clergy were not there.
They they are an absolute kingpin of the Diocese of Peru.
All over the county there are retired clergy taking services
every Sunday. They are unpaid.
They can submit expenses. Most of them choose not to do
so, so that that's another area where the church in Cornwall is
is being supported by people who are not paid.
There are other. What can we call them, really?
There are other. Lay people taking informal
services in churches across Cornwall and they of course are
incredibly valuable and again, the church could not be
surviving without all these people to help.
But they don't have overall responsibility for a church.
And what it appears, what appears to be the case is that
the lay, the lay people in the on the way project are going to
be having quite a bit of quite a bit of responsibility.
OK. And is is another reasonable
question to go with that, who is going to train these, these new
people? Are they going that that are
being proposed under the on the way project?
Are those those people going to be trained centrally centrally
or are they going to be people that are trained within their
their own parish system? I don't think I can.
I don't think I can actually answer that question.
We, we believe that they they will be trained within the
Diocese of Truro. I don't know any more about that
particular aspect of the plan. Just because it seems in my head
to follow on with this, this is quite a key thing.
If you say you're going to essentially be replacing trained
vicars with lay people, who those lay people are, how
they're selected and how they're trained is a pretty critical
issue I would have thought. It certainly, it certainly is a
critical issue for, for let's say an ordinary person like me,
I don't know, I don't know the answers to those questions, but
you're quite correct that it's it is a very important aspect of
the whole thing. The church is not just looking
to change those people and how they relate and what work they
do and how many churches they look after.
There's also another process which is going on which I think
I please explain because I don't understand it fully, but I
believe it's to do with the sort of combining of church councils.
Is that, is that correct? That's absolutely correct.
One of the aspects of On the Way which is particularly worrying
is the intention for churches once they are in an On the Way
group for them to combine their parochial church councils.
And this is, this is an absolute no as far as many people in
Cornwall in the church are concerned.
Parochial church councils are are very powerful parts of the
way churches are organised. Each church has its own
parochial church council at the present time unless they've
already agreed to combine together.
But churches need to understand that if they, if they combine
their PCCs, they will lose control of their own money, they
will lose control of their own finances because that one group,
PCC, will be deciding what happens to to the money.
So although you may, you may give to your church by, as John
said, by standing in order or by what's called putting money into
the plate, it will be a group PCC that decides how that money
is to be spent. And this is an aspect of On the
Way which is particularly worrying.
And PCCs of individual churches need to have the courage to say
they are not going to do it. They have the power to say no.
And there, there certainly is 1 area of Cornwall which I know
about, where the oversight minister was appointed and then
suggested that the PCCs were combined.
And there was actually widespread opposition to that.
And I think I'm right in saying that the combining the
combination has not happened. That's extremely interesting.
What was just in my head is that of course, if you combine these,
you control the money. But what's actually happening
is, is a centralization of power.
Because instead of having to deal with eight local churches
and eight groups of people who are the normal human beings, so
they've got different ideas and, and different ideas and needs
and wants, you combine them into one group.
And then it's easier to control that group to get where you want
to, you want to be. And maybe that's an sorry, maybe
that's an expansion of the on the way process, but maybe I'm
being a bit suspicious. Well, maybe you are being
suspicious, but there are, there are quite a number of other
people in Cornwall who are very, very suspicious of this
particular move to ask PCCs to combine into one.
There's there. There could also be the question
that how many, let's call them delegates or representatives of
the churches, how many from each church?
There could even be a suggestion that the larger the church, the
more people that they can have representing on that PCC, that
that's just a that's just a thought.
But, but certainly this is a very, very dangerous, very
dangerous move. Right, OK, so we've got this
interesting project on the way. And where has it come from?
Why? Why is the Church of England
suddenly talking about this project?
Well, the Church of England in some instances is talking about
this promise, saying that congregations are so diminished
since COVID, which does have a great deal of truth attached to
it, that churches have lost a lot of their members since the
COVID episode, let's call it. But they also talk a very great
deal about not having any money to pay clergy.
And that certainly is one of the arguments that's being used in
Cornwall. It was certainly the argument
that was being put forward when On the Way was first mentioned,
brought out we don't have money to pay enough clergy and that
was that was said consistently and a great many people took it
on board. We have to accept this new
project that we can't have a ordained clergy because there
isn't the money to pay them. The Diocese of Truro has in fact
backpedalled on that to a great extent and has had to admit that
it's not 100% the case that there isn't enough money to pay
clergy. This change is actually
ideological, that the concept of a parish church with an ordained
clergy person is now outdated and the diocese wants to get rid
of it. So what people, if I have this
correct, what people are being told is that there's no money to
pay for the number of vicars needed for, for A1 church 1
vicar system, which is the historic system.
There's no money for this. And of course, everybody, I
think in any parish would be aware of fundraising for the
church. It's usually fundraising for the
church roof. That's, that's a very common
thing for people to want to raise money for.
But now we've, we've got the church saying, well, we really
haven't got money to be able to pay, pay vicars.
And the new way forward is that we're going to have to water
down the system and one vicar is going to have to look after
multiple churches. And as you point out, that also
means that one vicar is now going to have to deal with a
great increased number of people to look after their souls.
So how, how is this? How's this new agenda from the
Church of England? How is this manifested within
the parishes? I mean, did it come out as a, as
a written edict that this is what we have to do because we
haven't got any money? How's how How is this policy
appearing in the parishes? There were, there were a great
many meetings took place between representatives of the diocese
and church wardens and parochial church councils to tell them
about this new scheme. Lots of lots of assurances that
everything would be fine because there were going to be new lay
people, in other words, not ordained people who were going
to be able to take services. So there would still be church
services, but they would not be taken by, if you like, qualified
ordained members of the clergy. And these these people would be
appointed over the whole diocese so that vicars would would have,
if you like people who were working with them.
One of the the most obvious responses to this is that if you
don't have an ordained member of the clergy taking a
congregation, you cannot have a service of Holy Communion.
You can't. And and this for a great many
people is a great loss because the taking of Holy Communion is
a very special part of, of Christian life in the Anglican
Church. And suddenly it's not going to
be there. So that's, that's one of the,
one of the, the big effects of it.
Lay ministry is, is what it's called.
And lay ministry is going to be expanded massively.
Right. So this is a very interesting
concept. If if we put this in terms of,
if we put this in terms of a commercial organisation, instead
of having fully qualified people doing their jobs in order to
save money, you're going to bring in people who are not
qualified. They're, we could say they're
amateurs, they may be enthusiastic amateurs, but
they're going to be amateurs. And so Church of England is
saying, well, we haven't got any money.
We're going to bring in amateurs to do what we're doing.
Ross, you're, you are clearly very concerned with what's
happening. And from what you've told me
previously, it's clear that there are more people becoming
concerned with the church. So how are people responding in
the parish to, to this new edict, this new way forward?
Are they, are they, are they upset?
Are they challenging it? There are, there are a great
many people in Cornwall who are very upset about what has
happened, what has already happened in their church, the
loss of a loss of an ordained clergyman or clergy, clergy
woman. I'd like to give you an example
of one of the things that happened in a particular part of
Cornwall. There was a village church which
needed a new roof, and the church themselves started an
appeal for a large sum of money to be able to repair the roof.
And the village was incredibly supportive.
People worked very hard. Grants were applied for which
the church was awarded a number of grants, but a great deal of
money was raised by the village by a great many people who were
not attenders of the local church.
And the roof was replaced. And the church arranged for
there to be a service of celebration for the finish of
this work. And an Archdeacon, a senior
ordained person in the diocese, was invited to the service.
And that Archdeacon stood in the pulpit and spoke to the
congregation about how church buildings, Anglican church
buildings with a vicar, were a thing of the past, that people
should stop thinking that this is what church was about.
And here were people who had raised the money to repair the
roof. And that member of the clergy
stood in the pulpit and told them it was a thing of the past,
that they would have a church there in that village.
So Ross is this is extraordinary because this is almost as though
the Church of England is unfolding a policy across
Cornwall in this instance that is actually going to not only
watered down the influence of the churches and the place of
the churches in in society in Cornwall, but it's it's also
going to be undermining them. We're going to we're going to
see churches in Cornwall disappear.
And the Church of England, from its highest level, is saying,
well, this is OK, We we're going, we're going to have to
lose churches in order to move forward.
That's exactly what they're saying.
They're saying that organised religion in this way is a thing
of the past, that forms of worship need to be taken out
into the community to go to football fields or shopping
centres in people's private homes.
That's that's the way that is now the way forward.
And there are there are churches in a whole number of places in
the Diocese of Truro which have started to be used as community
centres, community centres which do a whole variety of things and
which also happen to have services on a Sunday.
This is extremely interesting and I'll just add that a number
of people have pointed me at some comments which are, which
are actually online, I think that they're actually connected
with Save the Parish in Cornwall.
But there's a particular gentleman called John Kenner, if
I pronounce that name correctly, and he's written, and this is
available to the to the public at large, but he's written some
very interesting comments. He says that as treasurer of a
church in east Cornwall, he's asked to be replaced and he's
written up an article And I I'm going to read a little bit of
his article in just a moment. But he says he's happy for it to
be widely shared. And he says I think what is
happening is morally wrong. And he profoundly disagrees with
the Diocese of Truro's MMF policy and and spending plans.
And the MMS is mission and ministry of fund.
So let let me just read a little bit of what he says.
He says this the Church of England has a problem.
Congregations are falling. It is making changes with fewer
clergy and larger groups of churches.
I live in Cornwall where the changes go under the title of On
the Way. Save the Parish in Cornwall
argues that these changes are going to make things worse and
it is campaigning against their implementation.
I for one cannot see how anyone could claim that the changes
will make things better for parish churches, so conclude
that the changes have a different aim.
During his time in office, the recently departed Archbishop of
Canterbury presided over a 30% decline in congregations.
He blamed it on God. And then there's a quote.
I'm not sure I know what else could have been done.
Because in the end, the future of the church and it's survival
or otherwise does not depend on archbishops.
It depends on God and the provenance of God, John
continues. All the indications are that
those at the top have concluded that the decline will continue
and that in the long term parish churches are a lost cause.
Now the Church of England has an income of around £360 million
from property and investment, so archbishops and bishops and
their support staff and a lot else besides will still be
viable even when the last parish church is boarded up.
But if it's not going to look incongruous as an Admiralty with
no ships or the hospital in Yes Prime Minister with no patients,
it has to find a new role for itself.
Cornwall's Bishop Hugh, when talking about on the way on
Politics Southwest, said there will be slightly fewer clergy if
this plan is fully implemented. But there will be more people
doing work on behalf of the church, including, for instance,
more people working with children and young people and
more people working in the kind of things we do to support
people in the most deprived communities.
So food banks and debt support. Ross, I I think you're aware of
this particular piece of text by John, the treasurer of a church.
What do you think about what he said?
Do you, do you agree with what he said?
Do you understand with what he's talking about?
I understand exactly what he's talking about and I agree with
him 100%. I agree with him.
I agree with him 100%. Yes, interestingly, where John
says that the Church of England is going to continue with its
with its bishops and its administrators, but there won't,
there won't be any church. Interestingly, at the present
time, the Diocese of Truro has about 61 names on its list of
people who work for them, who are not who, who don't work in
churches at all. These are people who work in the
diocese's admin offices. And that number of people is
just about equal to the number of clergy working in the
diocese. So that head office, if you
like, has this extraordinary number of people working at it.
And in fact, this gentleman has attached an appendix with the
list of all the people who are working in the diocese.
And it's equal to the number of of clergy who are actually
working in parishes. I can't give you, I can't give
you the concrete evidence, but it is acknowledged even by the
Church Commissioners that projects like On the Way, which
have existed in other parts of England, have not been a
success. The most notable one that we
know about happened in Wigan, where the project was eventually
closed down. A number of churches had closed
completely. The Church Commissioners
declared the project to have been a failure.
And yet here we are in Cornwall with with an almost identical
project being pushed ahead by the suffragan Bishop who is
acting Bishop of Truro at the moment, and his advisors and
staff in the diocese. So a project which has been
shown not to work in other parts of the country, and yet in
Cornwall it's been steamrollered ahead.
Steamrollered ahead. I'm obviously learning as as
you're talking me through this, and I've learnt a lot from
reading the text that that John wrote.
Let me just read another bit and then for the audience, I'll,
I'll read out some of the diocesan team that you're
referring to. You're saying, well, on one hand
the Church of England is saying they haven't got enough money to
pay vicars to do the proper job of a vicar, but on the other
hand there's a huge team working for the diocese which is
obviously costing a huge amount of money.
I'll come onto that team in a minute.
Let's let's listen to another quote from this gentleman called
John. He says there is surely a
question as to whether the PCCs, the parochial church councils
are doing the right thing in paying the MMF, which is
described as voluntary. People like me give some money
from their pension or income to support various good cause
causes of their choice, and I used to believe that what I gave
my local church benefited my local church.
If I'd wanted to support the wider work of the Church of
England, I would have given to that cause.
The parochial church councils are not only trustees of a
charity whose first duty is to make sure the charity's assets
are only used to support or carry out its purposes, they are
also entrusted by donors with their money.
How can the PCC assume it has donors approval to give away
their money when it has no idea what it will be spent on and
when the amount requested is based purely on what the diocese
thinks it can get away with rather than specified needs?
In the case of my own church, I very much I very much doubt
those who give to the church by standing order or via the
collection plate realise that 59% of everything they give goes
to pay the MMF. And let's remind people that's
the mission and ministry fund. I didn't and I was horrified
when I found out. It all seems far removed from
what is most important to me, worshipping God with others,
maintaining an old building to worship in, and trying to make a
difference to our community. And after this statement, John
goes on to list some of these positions in the diocesan team.
And let's read out a few. We're not going to name people
because that would be unfair, but we can talk about their
position. So we've got an operations
department which has an operations manager, an operation
assistant, creation care and operations assistant,
safeguarding, an operations assistant, database
administrator. We have buildings, environment
and land ADAC secretary. We have a diocesan environment
officer, an operations assistant, a cut carbon support
officer, Brackets, churches, church buildings and support
officer under change and Renewal.
We have a director of change and renewal.
We have a programme manager. We have a project support
officer. Carmouth N We have a project
support officer. E Wivelshire.
We have a project support officer Carrier.
We have a project support officer Carmouth S We have a
data analyst and we have a project support person.
For change and renewal. We have a head of
communications. We have an out of hours
communication support and then we have a let me count these
12345678 Deanery liaison officers.
We have under governance A diocese secretary, we have a
head of operations and governments.
We have two information and governance officers, and under
education we have Director of Education.
Education, governance, lead education support officers,
schools creation care officer, cut carbon support officers of
school. And then it moves into finance.
And then later after a few more posts, it does actually get into
the ministry aspect. So I, I, I've not met this
gentleman called John and I, I must say I'd be fascinating to
meet him because he's really gripping the heart of the
matter. On one hand, we have the Church
of England telling its parishioners that we don't have
money to repair the churches. We don't have money to pay for
the vicars, and yet we have. How do I describe this?
Well, I could ask you, Ross, this is almost a quasi.
It's a corporate structure, yes, that's, that's, that's how a
great many of us view it. It's, it's a corporate
structure. It becomes more inflated every
year. And we don't know the value of
salaries amongst these people because it's not clear who of
them are full time paid staff and who are volunteers.
Possible. Well, there are and there are
certainly a number of staff who are only part time.
So when this policy came into Cornwall, the Bishop of Truro
was the main person who seemed to be projecting it.
He was the person who was effectively selling it to the
Christians in Cornwall. How?
How did he do that? What did he, what did the Bishop
of Truro at that stage, have to say about this new policy?
Can we name the person who was Bishop of Truro at that time?
Sir Bishop Philip Mount Stephen, who moved from the Diocese of
Truro to the Diocese of Winchester.
And we are awaiting a new Bishop who's due to be coming next
month. In the intervening period the
Suffragan Bishop, if you like the Junior Bishop of Truro, has
been pushing ahead with this Bishop Hugh, and it does.
It does seem that the number of staff working at the diocese
simply consistently increase whilst the number of, if you
like, qualified ordained clergy diminishes, so that at some
point if this were to continue, there would be almost no
ordained clergy in Cornwall, but the number of people working for
the diocese would be exactly the same.
I'm viewing this from from outside the Christian circle in
in Cornwall, but as as you described this, Ross, what comes
into my mind is that it's almost like the senior figures in the
church are trying to destroy the church structure in Cornwall.
That's exactly how it feels to a great many a great many
Anglicans in in the diocese. I know he's I know that he's now
moved on, but did anybody challenge the Bishop of Truro?
Did any, any of the parishes try and, and discuss what was
happening and push back on on what his plans were?
And if if they did, how did he react to that?
There certainly were people who questioned it and who tried to
push back. The Bishop reacted frankly with
intense anger. That's the only way to describe
it. That's, that's a pretty
extraordinary statement because one would have thought that a
senior person in the Church of England, if, if he was carrying
out God's work in a Christian spirit, would have reacted in a,
in a, a very understanding way to somebody that was trying to
challenge what he's doing. So to, you know, to be told that
he got angry, I think my brain says why did he get angry?
Why, why, why would he be angry? Because somebody was asking
questions about what his policy was.
Do you Do you have an explanation for?
That I have no explanation for it except that it felt
positively dictatorial. Today, what's the situation in
Cornwall today with respect to this policy?
Has everybody now accepted it and, and it's it's rolling out
and there's nothing that can be done about it?
Or do you think that there has been enough of a push back from
the people concerned in order to make people think and consider,
is this the right policy? Is it is it a fait accompli now
or do you think there's still time for people to do?
Things I think there is still time for for this project to be
halted. The crux of the matter is that
PCCs, parochial church councils and church wardens need to
understand they don't have to do what a Bishop tells them to do.
Parochial church councils have considerable power which a great
many of them simply don't realise that they can say the
word no. They don't realise that they can
refuse to go ahead with the project.
Even if they have agreed to do it in the past, they can still
decide not to do it. Parochial church councils are
very powerful bodies. In fact.
They don't have to do what their own clergy tell them to do.
They don't have to do what bishops tell them to do.
In a county like Cornwall, which is largely rural and which to
some extent there is still a belief that if the diocese tells
you to do something, you must do it.
If the Bishop tells you to do something that you must do it.
Actually, you don't have to do it.
You can say no. And I think that's that's
something that needs to be understood in in the county as a
whole. But if you're in one of the
areas where there is one particular area in Cornwall
where 22 churches have been effectively joined together with
something like 2 ordained clergy, it's an absolute
disaster. And no one can understand how
those 22, possibly it might even be 23 churches.
No one can understand how they have agreed to go ahead with it,
probably because they don't realise they can say the word
no. That that's a that's a very
interesting point. Now I don't know.
So I'm again, I'm just looking at this from I'm looking in from
the outside. But what I have noticed in quite
a lot of the documentation that I've seen coming out of the
Church of, of England, not not necessarily on matters to do
with with churches and the plan in Cornwall, but also for a
wider objective across UK, is they are using in their
documentation a lot of language which I regard as as really
highly political. It's the sort of language that
you see coming out of the centralised government in, in
the job titles that I've just listed that John has, has
pointed out, the moment I see cut carbon support, the Church
of England talking about cut carbon support.
This isn't, this isn't spiritual comment.
This is a political agenda which the child the the church has
somehow gripped and is, is now by sometimes I think, using some
fairly devious language, it, it's trying to draw its own
congregation into following a political agenda.
I'm, I'm being a little bit, I'm being a little bit controversial
here, but this is something that I certainly see going on.
How did the church, how is the church convincing local people
that they should get take on this new policy?
I wish I could answer that question because I don't think I
can answer it. It's interesting that you should
be mentioning carbon because in the the diocesan budget for the
year ahead, that was agreed at a particular type of church
meeting, which is called a Synod.
At the at the General Synod of the diocese meeting, which took
place just a few weeks back, the budget was voted through.
There was some opposition to it, which is very interesting.
That opposition was largely, but not exclusively, coming from
members who are associated with the organisation Save the
Parish. But one of the one of the items
in the budget which was of great concern was the amount that the
diocese plans to spend in the coming year on making
alterations to parsonages. In other words, clergy houses
vicarages to install triple glazing.
So some of those houses will only have single glazing, some
of them actually have double glazing, but the the project is
to put triple glazing in all the parsonages.
It seems that the Church of England is becoming more and
more obsessed with saving the planet and less and less
concerned with looking after people's souls.
My argument would be that the primary purpose of the Church is
the cure of souls, the looking after of your soul.
There are millions of people saving the planet in one way or
another, let them do it. The Church of England doesn't
need to abandon the cure of souls while it looks after the
planet. It can hand that over to someone
else while it sticks to its core function, which is the cure of
souls. Yep, this, this is fascinating.
While you were talking through that, my mind came back to an
article that the UK column published back in January 2021
and it was in it was entitled Welbees.
That's Archbishop of Canterbury, of course.
Welbees, Church of England, 2021 trillions for Gaya.
Greed, but peanuts for the parish paupers.
And Gaya was a reference to saving the world Mother Earth,
which is an interesting concept because we could argue that
that's completely out of the the Christian belief system.
But maybe that's for for another time.
But what was this article about? I'm certainly going to encourage
people who listen to this this discussion with Ross today to go
onto the UK column website and have a look for that.
If you put Welbeys Church of England 2021 into the search
bar, you will find it. But what we were pointing out
was that the Archbishop of Canterbury, in a number of
public statements and articles, was very, very excited that he
was able to work with international global
corporations in order to raise money effectively to save the
world through save the world from climate change and to
protect the environment. And we were talking huge amounts
of money. So the Archbishop of Canterbury
was beside himself with happiness that he was able to
work with these global corporations to raise multiple
trillions of pounds and the figure actually quoted was
£17.12 trillion sterling in order to save planet Earth.
But you are SAT with me saying this is remarkable because at
the same time, well Archbishop, the Archbishop of Canterbury,
Wellby Wellby's now moved on in disgrace.
But at the time he was making this statement, people in the
parishes were having to raise their own money to to look after
the church roof and to support their local vicar.
So there's something very strange going on here because
we've got an immensely powerful Church of England still.
It's got an Archbishop of Canterbury that is able to boast
he can be on a world stage with hedge funds and global
businesses to raise trillions of pounds, £17 trillion to save the
world. But when his representatives,
the Bishop of Truro is employed in in Cornwall in order to look
after the flock, the Christian people in Cornwall, then all of
a sudden there's no money. We've got to get rid of vicars,
we've got to group up churches. Unfortunately, we may lose some,
but not to worry about that because we're moving forward
into a new era of the church in action.
To to me, I I detect hypocrisy. I detect, well, unbelievable
hypocrisy. I detect deceit.
Because if the Church of England is able to raise trillions on a
world stage, why is it unable to raise a few million to support
what's needed locally? And I detect that the priority
is a political agenda rather than a spiritual agenda for
local people. But you tell me, Ross, if, if
I'm, if I got this wrong. No.
I don't think you've got it wrong at all.
I think there's a, there's a great deal of truth in what, in
what you say there. And personally, I'm very, very
concerned about the Church's emphasis on, let's call it
saving the planet as opposed to to looking after people in in
other ways. But actually just to take us off
in a slightly different, slightly different direction.
There is also another agenda at work here, which is that there
is a big push for taking the Church of England done what is
known as the evangelical route, which is taking church out of
the consecrated buildings and putting it out in out in
virtually any other kind of building in fact, and getting
rid of traditional worship. There is a big push to get rid
of traditional forms of worship. A great many churches have
decided to do that already. There is the the the evangelical
style of worship. Very modern.
Not to use an organ, but to have a worship band.
Not to have very many services of Holy Communion at all.
Not to use the orders of service that are sanctioned by the
Church of England to have church become.
Perhaps more acceptable to everybody.
There's a big There's a big push to say that evangelical styles
of worship are the only way in which you will get young people
into church. Actually, this is not
necessarily true. It may be true in some areas, in
some places, in other areas it very much isn't.
What appeals to to younger people if they are going to be
interested in church. As far as Cornwall's concerned,
there is a sizeable proportion of the the people of Cornwall
who are of pensionable age and for them traditional forms of
worship are very, very important.
They find it impossible in many instances, not all, but in many
instances they find it impossible to adapt to the
modern forms of worship. And in fact we know very well
that there are people who have left their own parish church
because the forms of worship are no longer traditional or
recognisable. Evangelical worship typically
gets away with books. They don't like hymn books, and
so the congregation is expected to read the words of the music,
which are not called hymns, they're called songs.
And the congregation is expected to read these from a large white
screen which is push up, often obliterating a view of the high
water with let's say a stained glass window behind it, so that
those are no longer visible. And the congregation are
expected to sing the words which are up there on on the screen
the services. Are actually non conformist and
you might be interested to know that the the person at the
Diocese of Truro who was responsible for the clergy
recently appointed is not a member of the Church of England.
He is a Methodist. This is this is fascinating.
I think we're going to have to be a little bit careful with the
time here because we're coming up to the top of the hour.
But I'm just going to respond that you you we initially
started out with raising questions about and concerns
around the Church of England's programme for churches in
Cornwall. And this new programme has been
sold on the, on the, from the point that we that the church is
saying it hasn't got money when clearly it has got money.
And now you're introducing a parallel policy, if I can use
that expression, which appears to be watering down what it is
to be a Christian within the Church of England itself.
And I, I just wanted to add in this came into my mind while you
were talking because it came to my attention that when King
Charles presented his or gave his Christmas speech to the
nation, he did it from the Fitzrovia Chapel in London.
And what I found interesting about this was, of course, to
the wider public, it looked as if he was in a church and he was
giving a Christmas message from within a church.
And everything to do with the video clip of his talk
reinforces that you're in a Chapel.
It's a very beautiful Chapel. The architecture is superb.
And here is King Charles giving his Christmas message.
But the reality is that that Chapel is actually
unconsecrated. And I, I was really stunned when
I discovered this because I thought it was incredibly
deceitful of the King to be presenting himself as being
within a Christian space, a place of Christian worship, when
in actual fact it was nothing of the sort.
It was an unconsecrated community space.
And Ross, you know, maybe this is this is me and it's a form to
me. But you're talking about the
watering down of, of, of the Church of England and the
Christian faith. And I just find it remarkable
that I picked up in December, Christmas just gone, the king
playing the same tricks, which was he was presenting himself as
if he was in church, but actually he was not in church.
He was in a, he was in a community space.
And if people want to understand a little bit more of that,
though the Chapel itself was connected with a former
Middlesex hospital and it is not and was not ever consecrated.
And I think it's impossible for anybody to suggest that King
Charles did not understand that when he stood in front of the
the camera. I believe the opposite is true,
that he knew perfectly well he was in an unconsecrated
community space. And this was to give a softer
message of what it is to be inverted commas, Christian.
It's very interesting, but because of course, in a way, a
similar sort of thing happened during lockdown when the
Archbishop of Canterbury had closed, all the Anglican
churches, as I said previously, had forbidden.
Clergy to go? Into their own churches.
And he, he celebrated communion on the Easter Sunday in his
kitchen at Lambeth Palace. And this caused widespread,
actually widespread, I would use the word disgust amongst many,
many people in the Church of England who said he had a
perfectly good consecrated space, A Chapel inside Lambeth's
Palace. And he did not use it to
celebrate Holy Communion or the Eucharist as it's known to some
people. On probably the most important
day of the church's year, which was Easter Sunday, the day that
celebrated the resurrection of the Son of God, he chose to
celebrate it in his kitchen. And that was so offensive to so
many people within the church and he, as Archbishop of
Canterbury, appears not to be aware that what he was doing
would upset so many people. Well, that, that's a very
interesting point and I wasn't aware that that he'd done that.
And it's, it's very interesting to understand that now.
But of course we'll remind the audience that this is the same
Archbishop of Canterbury that had to resign his position from
for failing to protect vulnerable people for from abuse
within the Church of England. So we can use the word I think
duplicitous quite safely that that whatever's been going on at
the top of the Church of England, it seems that
leadership for what it is to be a Christian and what the
Christian Church should be doing.
This has been falling away. Let let's just end with I think
something a little bit more direct.
So Ross, you've, you've taken us through a lot of very
interesting points around what's happening, almost an undermining
of the church in Cornwall. What, what would you say to
people in the congregations of churches in Cornwall?
What, what should they and in the parishes, what, what should
people be doing in order to challenge what is being, I'm
going to say, enforced on them? What can people do in order to
speak out and and stop this agenda?
I think, I think there should be an absolute concentration on
putting forward this absolute fact that you do not have to do
what the diocese tells you. They may threaten you with the
closure because you won't. You won't have a, you won't have
a priest, so you'll have to close the church anyway.
If enough people actually put their heads above the parapet
and say actually we are not going to do this, I think the
diocese will have to take notice.
They can be very frightening, there is no doubt about that,
but I think the Word needs to get out there widely that
parochial church councils and church wardens can say the word.
No, there hasn't been enough of that in Cornwall and certainly
the organisation Save the Parish, which is working very
hard to get information out to people on how to withstand what
feels, what actually feels like a steamroller on behalf of the
diocese. It's time for people to who
really believe this is the wrong way for us to be going.
We should be looking at more ordained clergy in parishes, not
taking the way for those members of the clergy to get out there
in their own parishes, to be seen in the local petrol
station, to be seen in the local shop, to be a living, obvious,
visible part of a parish, to show how important they are and
the work that they are willing to do.
There needs to be people ready to stand up and say actually,
we're not going to do this, we are not going to do it.
No is a powerful word to use, but of course, to use the word
no also requires courage. It does require courage.
It does require courage and the diocese, the, the hierarchy if
you like in the diocese know very well that they have, they
have behaved very threateningly towards members of the clergy
who have tried to withstand on the way.
There have been rumours of disciplinary action.
I say rumours of disciplinary action.
It does it does take courage and it's it's in in in the New
Testament. It's there that Jesus said you
will need courage to withstand the things that happen if you do
things which are in my name. So have courage.
My words were to be have courage.
You've pointed out how important it is for people to have the
courage to stand up and speak out about what's happening.
What else would you say that people need to do in order to
fight back against what's happening, not not only just in
the church, but probably now? Why do lies?
Because I think more and more people realise that something's
badly wrong. They no longer look to politics
to solve it because they don't have any trust in the political
system or or probably in in MPs to do the right things.
What else can people do alongside standing up to be
counted? Well, as churches.
As I've said previously, parochial church councils and
church wardens are actually very powerful people.
They might not realise how powerful they are, they may not
realise that they have the power to say no to the diocese, to say
no to the bishops, but they do have that power and it would be
wonderful if they would use that power to say no.
Actually, we are not we're not going to do this.
The the diocese can be quite can be quite frightening in some
circumstances. There have been rumours of of
clergy being threatened if they if if they criticise all the way
and and the plans. But the big thing is to have
courage to be ready and able to say the word no if you truly
believe that your church should not be going down this route.
And then of course, the most valuable thing of all is to
pray. To pray about it constantly.
Because the one person who can help you to make the difference
is Christ Himself. Ross, thank you very much.
What a wonderful place to end on.
So I'm going to say again, thank you very much for joining me and
I will be fascinated to see what response we get to this
interview. And usually people come forward
as a result of people talking about these.
Interesting and sometimes worrying issues.
So I will really look forward to seeing what the audience has to
say. And if there are people out
there who are sufficiently concerned about what you're
describing and want to learn more, or particularly those who
would like to stand up and be counted and help, then I'm going
to say please get in touch with the UK column and tell us a
little bit about yourself and what you'd like to do.
But Ross, thank you very much. One last thing that I would say,
information about Save the Parish Cornwall can be found
online, simply type it in to your search engine and you will
find Save the Parish Cornwall with much very interesting
information. Brilliant.
Thank you very much. Thank you.