Save The Parish - Cornwall

The shocking scale of the wholesale re-organisation of the Church of England in Cornwall has finally been exposed on a national stage.  The extent of the cost and impact of the ideologically-based restructuring is listed over two pages in today's Church Times. The paper also reports local concern that these plans are being pushed through from the top without proper local consultation. The Diocesan ten-year plan for Change and Renewal was noted at a thinly attended Diocesan Synod on 20 May.  Lay synod member Martin Saunders is quoted as saying this was  'totally undemocratic' as synod members had not been given enough time to study it. "It was just 'take it or leave it,' he said.  Click here and here to read the articles. Click here to read the Diocesan ten-Year Plan for Change and Renewal . Attempts by Cornwall's Bishops, the Rt Rev Philip Mounstephen and the Rt Rev Hugh Nelson, to play down the scale and upheaval of these changes are blown away in the rep...

The Bishop of Truro, the Rt Rev Philip Mounstephen is pushing forward with controversial and unpopular plans for radical change in the Church of England in Cornwall  - due, he says, to falling congregations and income.  But a recent article on Psephizo explains that there is, in fact, a lot of money around. The Church Commissioners made remarkable returns on their investments last year - and their charitable aims centre on supporting the growth of churches and ministry. So just what is going on? A summary below -  click here to read The Church of England’s financial imbalance on Psephizo . "The Church Commissioners have published their investment result from 2022 along with their annual report for the year, and both can be found online here. The investment results are quite remarkable. Although the headline return last year was only 5.0% last year (compared with 13.3% in 2021), which means a real-terms reduction in the value of their assets during a year when inflat...

You may be interested to know that Leicester diocese is presently putting forward the first whole-diocese reorganisation scheme. The idea is that each and every parish in the diocese should be gathered into a large grouping, overseen by an ‘Oversight Minister’. Despite past denials from the top, such schemes provide clear evidence that the proven CofE parish system, as we know it, is being ended. Other dioceses may be achieving the same result differently (for example by allowing current appointments to end without appointing new parish priests). A ten-year plan noted by the Truro Diocesan Synod on Saturday plans for 55 Oversight Ministers across the diocese. We believe this to herald a pan-diocese plan for a complete change of style of ministry. Truro's Bishops have already confirmed that two of Cornwall's 12 deaneries will see new patterns of ministry with stipendiary clergy leading teams of ordained and lay people over areas that will include more than ten churches - Ke...

Details here in this Job Description to read about the merger of two benefices to one in the north Cornwall deanery of East Wivelshire - and a move from 'traditional patterns of ministry to an oversight and focal/local model'. The ad is for an Oversight Minister to lead this transition. Click here to read. This comes as Cornwall's Bishops say plans for such giant benefices - or ' mega parishes' - will take place in 'two deaneries' only. Click here to read their statement on the Diocese of Truro website and attack on BBC1's Sunday Politics South West which exposed these plans. Click here to read Save The Parish Cornwall's line-by-line response. We will post up more details of these plans as they emerge. Click here to read East Wivelshire's On The Way Deanery Plan.

The alarmingly thin Lay representation in the Church of England in Cornwall was never more evident than on Saturday (20/05/2023) at Truro’s Diocesan Synod when the Bishops’ ten-year Plan for Change and Renewal was ‘noted’ despite brave voices of concern. Shockingly, senior clergy have allowed just over a third of Lay seats on the Synod to remain vacant: out of a total 55 possible lay representatives, only 35 (63%) are occupied. Yet these are the supposed “voice of the congregations” and allowed to fall silent. So it was predictable that after debate, with the thin lay presence as usual dominated by the Bishops’ supporters, the Synod at St Martins Church in Liskeard agreed to “note" the plan and nod it through – 42 in favour, three against and no abstentions, Vivian Hall, a member of the General Synod but also a Trigg Major deanery synod member, led a Lay resistance. He proposed an amendment which sought to dismiss the original motion proposed by the Bishop of Truro, the Rt Rev Ph...

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...

A damning assessment by MPs of Cornwall's Bishops' plans to change the Church of England in Cornwall was broadcast on TV across the South West today. BBC1's Sunday morning Politics SouthWest delved deep into the Diocese of Truro's controversial 'On The Way' plans under which parish priests will be cut across the county and replaced by 'oversight ministers' managing large numbers of parishes and teams of lay project workers. Click here to view - the segment starts at minute 20. Diane Thomas from Sancreed Church in Penwith deanery told the programme that her church had not had a vicar for nine years. The Rt Rev Hugh Nelson, Bishop of St Germans, Hugh Nelson admitted for the first time that Truro's On The Way plans WILL mean “slightly fewer clergy”. He also admitted that the “very wealthy” national Church of England is freeing up large sums of money for churches. "The church does have (money), it's very wealthy .... some of that is being free...