PRIESTS AND MP LEAD STRONG CALLS TO FIGHT BACK AGAINST CHURCH REORGANISATION

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 A senior MP called for parishioners to push back against senior clergy schemes that create giant benefices, overwork or cut parish clergy, and are likely to result in the closure of churches by default.
Addressing the national Save The Parish summer conference in York this week, Labour's Rachael Maskell, a member of the House of Commons Ecclesiastical Committee, declared:
“Why are we accepting this from the leaders of the Church of England?”.
She said the Church of England decline didn’t just affect congregations, it affected the entire community. She called on the whole community to fight against the loss of priests in parishes and closure of churches.
In rural areas “when the local shop, the post office, the pub, the village school all go, the church is often the last public building standing," she said. “And if that closes, is what is left a community or just a collection of people?"
She warned against the physical and mental “breakdown” of overworked priests required to oversee large multiples of churches. “It just doesn’t work,” she said
Ms Maskell,  a practicing Christian, went on to speak against the current church hierarchy’s obsession with targeting youth.
“Yes, of course we must invest in the young, but we need the more worldly experienced older people too.”
She urged the Church Commissioners to spend more from their multi-billion pound bank accounts on hiring more clergy and keeping churches in parishes open.
“The Church Commissioners seem to say they are saving all those billions for a rainy day - well the storm is here now. What is the point of a huge bank account if there’s nothing left to spend it on?”
Rev Marcus Walker, founder and leader of Save The Parish nationally, said STP would be campaigning at this week’s General Synod for a much stricter use of millions of pounds from the LICF (Lower Income Community Fund). These funds, given to dioceses by the Church Commissioners annually, should be much more strictly controlled directly by parishes, campaigners believe.

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