CHURCH OF ENGLAND

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 219, 16 June 1925, Page 9

CHURCH OF ENGLAND

STATE CAUSING GRAVE CONCERN DECLINE IN CANDIDATES FOR MINISTRY REMARKABLE SERMON BY BISHOP OF BIRMINGHAM The Bishop of Birmingham, in a sermon, said the present state of the Church of England was causing grave anxiety. A most serious problem, he declared, was the decline in number and quality of candidates for the ministry. Br Tei egraph—Press Association. CoPI'UIGHT. (Rec. June 15, 8.45 p.m.) London, June 15. The Bishop of Birmingham, the Right Rev. Henry Russell Wakefield, preaching in Westminster Abbey, in a remarkable sermon on Catholicism and Christianity, said the present i-tate of the Church of England was causing grave anxiety. Anglo-Catliolics usually belittled and derided the value of reformation doctrines, which they explicitly repudiated in articles in which they openly taught that this new Catholicism was essentially reactionary. The decline in number anil quality of candidates tor the ministry was a most serious problem. With the grave shortage of clergy the parochial system was breaking down. Differences within the Church were so acute that in large cities the churches were becoming congregational, not parochial. As the quality of the clergy declined their outlook was becoming increasingly narrow. The best modern theological scholarship was ignored. An official committee put forward non-controversial proposals for the revision of the prayer-book, but when the proposals reached the clergy a desire to give a Catholic turn to the prayer-book showed itself. “We stand at the crossroads,” declared the Bishop. ‘‘We have seen enough recently of the situation within the Church to be gravely apprehensive.”—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Cable Assn.