Save The Parish - Cornwall

 There's still time to send Diocesan Secretary Simon Cade your thoughts about his controversial 2024 budget consultation - which proposes selling off vicarages to raise funds to pay priests.  The deadline is 23 September 2023. Martin Saunders of Pydar Deanery has written the following paper: click here to read. Simon Cade's paper, entitled Tending the Vineyard , is here .  Send your thoughts to simon.cade@truro.anglican.org To read a response by Save The Parish Cornwall's Neil Wallis, click here .

There is still still time to object. Rev Simon Cade (Truro Diocesan Secretary) has published a paper about the budget for the coming years - and central to it is a plan to sell off Cornwall's vicarages to raise money. This is- of course - selling the family silver. There is a growing surge of opinion against Diocesan plans to 'restructure' the Church of England in Cornwall. Click here to read a dossier compiling the objections of people across Cornwall. There is still time  - just (the deadline is 23 September) - to push back against the budget proposals.  Objections can be brief - or extended. The important thing is to let Rev Cade know your thoughts. Click here to read his paper in full.  His email is simon.cade@truro.anglican.org As usual, the key points are buried in a misleadingly benign 'story-telling' narrative.  Save The Parish Cornwall's Neil Wallis sets out his thoughts below : "As we’ve seen in so many Simon Cade papers, the diocesan secreta...

Anyone interested in Truro Diocese leadership's thinking on the future of church buildings in the county should definitely take a look at a paper by Diocesan Secretary Simon Cade, presented at the most recent meeting of the Diocesan Advisory Council (DAC). Rev Cade says said that during the Covid pandemic lockdowns, people had ‘learnt to say that “the church is not a building”. The last three years ‘may have shifted our collective attitude to buildings’, he goes on to argue. His thoughts in this short paper (slides below) veer from apparently supporting parish churches to saying that they do not matter, as he draws our attention to what he calls 'four stories'.... The View From the Diocesan Secretary's Office Story, place and buildings in Cornwall 1.  During lockdowns we learned to say that the church is not a building This is a theological and linguistic ‘truth’ and it was important to sustain the life of the church when we did not have access to buildings  The l...

Save The Parish Cornwall's Andrew Lane (tongue firmly in cheek) puts forward a few ideas on what could constructively be done following the Archbishop of Canterbury's announcement that  £3.6 billion was to be pumped into rural parishes to help them survive .  Inspired by Truro's  Diocesan Secretary Simon Cade's recent letter to the people of Cornwall  which dashed any such hopes, Andrew picked up his pen and dared to dream....... Regarding the new funding from the Archbishops et al, I note that it is going to be directed towards projects . These projects must reach ‘the young and poor .....better representing the communities we serve’ , must aid in ‘transition to lower carbon...........making a step change in social justice’ and will bolster general safeguarding. I here propose a novel project suitable for many rural communities. First form a group of people dedicated to the spiritual health of their parish. Let’s call it a Parish Committee. Seek to acquire an u...

If you thought it was too good to be true, you were right. Many in Cornwall and elsewhere were delighted when the Archbishop of Canterbury announced in May that the Church of England is to pump £3.6bn directly into its 12,500 parishes over the next nine years - rather than urban churches. To the relief of many,  Justin Welby , and the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, admitted the C of E had been heavy-handed in concentrating funds on urban churches in recent years. “Allocating money in the past was perhaps, if we’re honest, a bit too driven from the centre. Now we’re trusting the dioceses much more,” said Cottrell. Alas.  In Cornwall, this was just pie in the sky. How do we know? Truro Diocesan Secretary Simon Cade has revealed all.  In fact, just like before, in the Diocese of Truro this money will in fact be grabbed by the Bishops of Truro and St Germans to fund their pet mission projects.