Is the parish priest an endangered species?

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Save The Parish Cornwall responds to Diocese of Truro statement

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Save The Parish Cornwall issues the following response to a regrettable statement by the Diocese of Truro published on its website on 5 March 2024. The Diocese misleadingly says that Save The Parish Cornwall is 'targeting clergy' and providing inaccurate clergy figures. Save The Parish Cornwall’s recent analysis of clergy numbers in the Diocese shows that there were just 39 priests for Cornwall’s 200 plus parishes and 300 churches at the end of December 2023 - according to figures supplied by Church House sources at the end of January 2024. A further 19 other incumbencies remained vacant. Stipendiary priests in Cornwall at the end of December 2023, and their locations: data supplied by Church House sources to Save The Parish Cornwall at the end of January 2024. There was, therefore, one stipendiary priest to 15,000 people: the population of Cornwall is just over 600,000. The number of stipendiary priests in Cornwall at the end of December 2023 was 39. Save The Parish Cornw...
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Cornwall's Bishops in tailspin after BBC Sunday Politics coverage

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Cornwall’s Bishops have been stung by hard-hitting coverage on BBC Sunday Politics South West of their controversial On the Way cost-cutting programme which is cutting clergy numbers, merging parishes and threatening church closures. In a 1200-word statement on the Diocese of Truro website , and an accompanying letter to all churches, the Bishop of Truro, the Rt Rev Philip Mounstephen, and the Bishop of St Germans, the Rt Rev Hugh Nelson, complain about many aspects of the report ( click here to view the report ). The problem is, as so often with the Diocese of Truro statements, rhetoric does not coincide with reality. Truro complains (on the Diocesan website): “The report lasted just under five minutes but…. Much of the time was given to four speakers from a campaign group, three of whom have no connection with the church in Cornwall or with wider Cornish society." Save The Parish Cornwall explains: The four actually included two well-respected...
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Diocese of Truro's Halloween budget - 10 key takeaways from draft report for November Synod

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You may be forgiven for not having caught up with the Diocese of Truro's draft budget report for 2025. It has only just been posted up on the Diocesan website, in sharp contrast with previous years when Diocesan Secretary Simon Cade has circulated draft budgets several months in advance, asking for comment.  It's no surprise that Church House will have wanted to keep this under wraps - it's their own 'Halloween' budget.  This isn't a budget for radical change. Rather a budget to manage a Diocese in chaos. A budget with a worryingly large deficit and a plan to plug ever increasing holes with fast-diminishing reserves. To read the details - due to be discussed at the Diocesan Synod on 23 November 2024 - click here. In the budget, the Diocese reneges on a public promise to Save The Parish Cornwall to stop a decline in clergy numbers: numbers are set to fall still further in 2025. Yet again, Church House costs will increase (despite pledges to cut them). And for the...
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