Save The Parish - Cornwall

Villagers in Merrymeet, east Cornwall, once again celebrated a major Christian festival outside their locked church - as Cornwall's Bishops continue to ignore the voices of communities across the county. On Easter Sunday, two pop-up tents sheltered about 20 people gathered to mark the Christian calendar's major festival - four months after they similarly celebrated Christmas . Merrymeet Church was closed last October and for the past six months the Bishop of Truro, the Rt Rev Philip Mounstephen, has ignored villagers' protests as he pursues his unpopular plans for radical parish re-organisation. These plans envisage cutting priests in parishes and boosting the number of lay workers in a 'resource church model' - shown by recent research to be deeply flawed.   Merrymeet Residents' Association Chairman Peter Luck said: "Once again we have been able to celebrate an annual religious event by using our pop up combination of two gazebos." " This time ...

An update from Admiral Sir James Burnell-Nugent, Save The Parish board member, who spoke recently in Truro at a Save The Parish Cornwall meeting "Firstly I would like to draw your attention to a ‘Thunderer’ article in The Times this morning – written by Emma Thompson.  https://savetheparish.com/ 2023/04/10/thunderer-column- times-10-04-2023/   Various bits of important news have appeared in the Church Times and other papers recently.  I thought you would like to know about them too.   Last week there was an important leader in the Church Times.  Here are the opening sentences: “Announcements of new funding under the umbrella of the new Strategic Mission and Ministry Investment (SMMI) suggest that the wind has changed direction in the corridors of Church House, Westminster.  The word “parish” has crept back into the text as something worth supporting, if not exactly in need of saving.  Whether this heralds the departu...