Save The Parish Cornwall responds to Diocese of Truro statement

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 Cornwall’s analysis was prompted by the fears of many – including stipendiary clergy – that the number of clergy was falling to an all-time low in the county. Why did we undertake that analysis? Because at the core of all Save The Parish Cornwall’s work and campaigning is a desire to see more stipendiary priests in Cornish parishes.

On its own admission, the Diocese has been challenged by the difficulty of appointing people to the controversial, new 'Oversight Ministry roles planned in its On The Way restructuring plans.

It has recently appointed curates to these complex and experimental positions which would tax the skill set of a priest with many years of experience. Save The Parish Cornwall's analysis draws attention to this unsettling fact. Curates, without a doubt, can be filled with passion and enthusiasm: they do, however, by definition, lack experience.

Save The Parish Cornwall questions the wisdom of appointing ‘newly qualified’ priests to these posts. It suggests that it is the nature of the jobs themselves – which involve administration, finance skills and staff management as well as pastoral care – that deter potential candidates.

‘Oversight ministry’ roles are not exactly what clergy focussed on the ‘cure of souls’ signed up to.

Save The Parish Cornwall maintains its position that clergy numbers in Cornwall remain at a concerning, all-time low.

As the Diocese of Truro communications team well knows, numbers of clergy at Truro Cathedral, nor the Acting Bishop of Truro, are not included in official Diocese clergy numbers. Neither are 'House for Duty clergy who receive a house instead of a stipend and work part-time'.

The former Bishop of Truro, the Rt Rev Philip Mounstephen, however pledged on BBC Radio Cornwall in May 2023 that by this summer (just three months away) the number of stipendiary clergy would be increased to 80 plus. At the time, Save The Parish Cornwall questioned this, as it seemed an unrealistic figure.

Save The Parish Cornwall, and the people of Cornwall, will be interested to see how the figure of 39 paid stipendiary parish priests at the end of December 2023 more than doubles in that short time.

Regarding the staff to clergy ratio, according to the Diocesan budget published in October 2023, there were the equivalent of 38.3 full-time paid lay jobs on the books at Church House. Staffing was predicted to rise to 40.6 in 2024. This compares to a ratio of 5:1 i.e. five priests to one Church House staff member in 2011. The 2023/24 Diocese of Truro budget document says:

“As previously mentioned due to the Diocesan Plan for Change and Renewal being approved during 2023 we are needing to increase the central resources in order to deliver the vision included in that plan.”

The Diocese of Truro needs to encourage trust and understanding. It is regrettable that it should publish a statement of such anger: nothing can be gained by polarising the debate in this way. Save The Parish Cornwall’s campaign is for more priests in parishes. For parishes to be preserved, not merged into huge, unworkable benefices under ‘Oversight Ministers’ and a move toward lay ministry.

The Diocese of Truro’s corporate agenda – revealed in the development and implementation of its On The Way restructuring plans – sadly allows and encourages its impersonal and inappropriate responses to people who are simply wanting the Church of England in Cornwall to flourish.