POOR CLERGY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 184, 6 August 1934, Page 7

POOR CLERGY.

Vicar Makes Strong Protest in His Will. HARDSHIPS IMPOSED. (Eecelved 12.30 p.m.) LONDON, August 5. The late Rev. John Bennett, vicar of Boddington, Kent, made a strong protest in his will against the hardships he asserted the Church of England imposes on the clergy. He warned his son not to take Holy Orders. He left £555.

The will says the son should not enter the Church unless he has a private income, or, in the alternative, is'satisfied he has a vocation for celibacy arid the ability to endure the most extreme poverty while he maintains the polite appearance of prosperity which the "Anglican saints" expect.

"The Apostles might rejoice in having nothing but possessing all things," says the will, "but possessing nothing while seeming to have everything is fraud, also a curse on the Church of England and on the thousands of devoted men and women in her parsonages."

Declaring that his father made his will when lie had suffered considerable misfortune, Mr. George Bennett, the son, who is aged 30, says he is surprised and distressed at its publication. His father had changed his mind-before his death. "He raised no objection to my taking Holy Orders, which I am doing in December," stated Mr. Bennett.