THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25739, 26 February 1949, Page 7

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

DISESTABLISHMENT DISCUSSED ARCHBISHOPS FAVOUR GREATER FREEDOM LONDON, February 24. After long discussion on a resolution calling for the disestablishment of the Church, the Church of England Assembly adopted a resolution calling for a committee to draw up resolutions on changes desirable in the relationship between Church and State. Disestablishment would mean that the Church would no longer have to submit its measures for approval by Parliament, but it would also cease to be the official Church of the State. The resolution calling for disestablishment said that the existing relationship was an infringement of

spiritual freedom. It added that the Church had been long falling under chronic subordination to civil power. The Archbishop of York (Dr. C. F. Garbett) said that the Church had not the whole control which a spiritual body should have. Bishops were appointed by the Prime Minister, who need not be a Church of England member. Totalitarianism was at the moment in the ascendancy, and it would be possible for a Government hostile to the Church to use its great powers to use the Church for propagating its own opinions. Dr. Garbett said that there were fundamental reasons, for asking for Church reform and for some change in the relationship between the Church and the State, but he was not prepared to support disestablishment. That would be regarded as a national repudiation of religion at a time when niany churches in Europe were fighting for their lives. The Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. G. F. Fisher), supporting Dr. Garbett, emphasised that the matter should be put before the dioceses so that when the Church went to the btate it would go with a unified mind, then, he said, he did not doubt that the State would not hesitate to give them all reasonable spiritual freedom.