Save The Parish - Cornwall

  A letter from Save The Parish Cornwall's Peter Bellenes in the Western Morning News today - in response to the Bishops' statement published last week in response to our joint statement with Cornwall Buildings Group (CBG).

  Cornish bishops actively mislead in denying diocesan plans for church closures, pressure groups say The Bishops of Truro and St Germans are actively misleading the people of Cornwall by saying that there are no diocesan plans for church closures - because their own documents show that the likelihood of shutting churches is being openly prepared for, Save The Parish Cornwall and the Cornish Buildings Group (CBG) say.   The two campaigning groups said earlier this week that the Bishops’ radical restructuring plans will change the face of church going – and the Cornish landscape - forever. The Bishops responded (27/10/22) by saying that there were no diocesan plans for church closures. “The Bishops are simply playing with words here and are actively misleading the people of Cornwall,” said Susan Roberts of Save The Parish Cornwall, which is campaigning to keep priests in parishes and churches open. “Plans drawn up by deaneries which envisage huge benefices hav...

  The Diocese responds to our joint press release with The Cornish Buildings Group. 

  CAMPAIGN GROUPS CALL FOR MORATORIUM ON BISHOPS’ RADICAL PLANS TO CHANGE CORNISH CHURCHES   Two Cornish campaign groups are calling for a moratorium on Truro’s Bishops’ radical restructuring plans which they say will change the face of church going – and the Cornish landscape - forever.   Save the Parish Cornwall and The Cornish Buildings Group (CBG) warn that new diocesan schemes to create giant benefices swallowing up smaller rural parishes will result in the closure of many churches and the destruction of a vital part of Cornish life. Clergy numbers will be radically cut and funds instead funnelled towards lay ‘support workers’.   Patrick Newberry, Chairman of the CBG, says as many as half of the churches in East Cornwall could be closed as plans for central ‘mission churches’ and lay ministry – rather than priests in rural parishes – are implemented. The CBG, which works to preserve ancient buildings and Cornwall’s heritage, believes it is time to ch...

Click here to read the job ad for the new rural dean of Penwith - a post created following the deanery's controversial On The Way plan which proposes creating two super parishes - east Penwith and west Penwith. - 

  A bleak night in Portreath, Cornwall, saw Carnmarth North deanery plan voted  through after two delays. Initially Rural Dean Caspar Bush and his team failed to submit it in time for Episcopal College approval before the June synod meeting. Then following the death of the Queen, the 9 September 2022 synod  was postponed. On Tuesday 18 October, Rev Bush finally saw the On The Way plan approved which will see him as Rural Dean Tsar head up a new 'On The Way' unit swallowing up Transforming Mission Camborne. His former curate Rev Graham Adamson becomes a 'peripatetic' vicar across Carnmarth North's 18 churches. As one clergyman from Camborne bravely said at the Synod, a fair amount of the Church Commissioners' Lowest Income Community funding - which will finance this new roaming position - will be spent on his petrol costs. Rev Adamson will also in an odd twist be overseeing the work of his former boss Rev Rosheen Browning, priest in charge at Camborne, who has st...

Despite the repeated assurances to the contrary by the Bishop of St Germans, the Rt Rev Hugh Nelson, moves are indeed afoot for major parish re-organisation in the Diocese of Truro through On The Way plans. Earlier this year, the Bishop repeatedly told both Save The Parish Cornwall - and East Wivelshire synod members - that 'there are no plans for parish re-organisation'.   This despite papers written by Archdeacon Paul Bryer extolling the virtues of 'super parishes' and Joint Councils  - that have proved so disastrous elsewhere in the country. People attending the most recent East Wivelshire Deanery Synod have learned that there are in fact plans. And plans that the diocese intends to implement swiftly. Click here to read the East Wivelshire powerpoint which has left many synod members bewildered. " Slide 9 is particularly important," says one. "There is no suggestion in any of this that individual parishes can opt out of the mega benefices - which w...