Church of England urged to use £1bn slavery fund to restore Sunday services
The Church of England (CofE) has been urged to use its £100 million transatlantic slavery fund to reverse cuts to Sunday services and parish priests.
The Church committed to handing out the funds to “address past wrongs of slavery” in January 2023 but was told by its own committee on Monday that it needed to increase the size of the fund to £1 billion.
Alarmed campaigners have called for the potential ten-figure sum to be redirected to hard-pressed rural parishes to try to revive shrinking congregations.
Almost 300 parishes have closed in the past five years as the number of Anglican worshippers has continued a long-term fall across England.
It has forced countryside churches to share priests with other parishes and left them increasingly reliant on lay volunteers and retired ministers to take services.
“It would be scandalous if the CofE wasted money on reparations for the past – a flawed concept in any case – and direct Church involvement in slavery was minimal,” said Prof John Milbank, the Anglo-Catholic theologian.
“Whereas the Anglican role in the abolition of slavery was enormous.”
In Cornwall, the Diocese of Truro is merging parishes in a reorganisation that the local Save the Parish campaign group fears could be rolled out nationwide.
A similar project in the Diocese of Leicester has led to the merger of 23 parishes into the Launde Minster Community in a cost-saving measure.
‘Communion by courier’
One Cornish deanery, at Kerrier, has also been formed from 23 churches but has just two priests, a curate and an unpaid retired cleric, with one of the priests not working on Sundays.
Elsewhere, parishioners have been left to rely on “communion by courier” because there are not enough ordained priests to consecrate bread and wine in-person during every eucharist.
Lay ministers are forbidden from consecrating the sacrament themselves, forcing it to be consecrated in batches before being delivered to individual churches.
Neil Wallis, from Save the Parish Cornwall, told The Telegraph there were now more employees working in the Diocese of Truro’s head office than ordained priests working on the ground.
“Those that are left are increasingly forced into administrative bureaucrat roles as ‘oversight ministers’ who manage lay volunteers,” he said.
“When people object to mergers, they are told they are the only people complaining and that the diocese will go through with the plans regardless. It is straight out of the Post Office playbook.”
In September, a Telegraph investigation found that a quarter of Cornish churches were no longer holding services every Sunday.
“Currently we estimate that there is one priest for every 15,000 people,” Mr Wallis added. “How can one person minister to 15,000 people?”
A spokesman for the Diocese of Truro said it planned to increase the number of clergy to 85, was investing £22 million in parish ministry and denied doing “communion by post”.
They said the campaigners’ figures for the number of clergy did not include those at Truro Cathedral, the diocese’s bishops or part-time ministers who receive a house instead of a wage.
“The church in Cornwall remains in robust health, serving our communities and helping people get to know God,” the spokesman said.
“It is a shame that the local Save the Parish leaders are putting more energy into knocking the church than they are into proactively supporting it.”
