THE CURATE'S EGG

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 219, 15 September 1943, Page 4

THE CURATE'S EGG

LITTLE BUT A SHELL

LONDON. A recommendation that a curate should be given more security than ho enjoys at present is made in the report of a Committee on Proposed Church Reforms just issued.

If a curate is appointed to an incumbent he cannot be "sacked" without the bishop's permission, but should the incumbent die, or resign, or transfer to another benefice the curate can be dismissed by the newincumbent at any time during the first six months of his tenure.

It is then no one's responsibility to find the curate a new job. It is

recommended that such a curate should be granted a diocesan license to officiate within the diocese.

Another suggestion is that every clergyman should be assured of a basic stipend, based on his family requirements, length of service, etc. A yearly grant should be made by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to each diocese to supplement the basic stipend should the incumbent have children—a sort of Beveridge Plan for the Church.

The recommendations, which include one for the revival of synodical government — whereby a bishop meets once in three years all the clergy within his diocese—have been circulated to St. Alban's Diocesan Conference. A full-dress debate on them will be held in October.