NO MORE MARRIED CLERGYMEN.

Otago Witness, Issue 3488, 18 January 1921, Page 27

NO MORE MARRIED CLERGYMEN.

The Bisnop of Willesden, wlio contributed a chapter to a recently published book on tiie subject of clerical poverty, told a DailyChronicle representative that if the laity fail to come to the help of their pastors the church will have to be content with celibate clergy or with those who spend their weeic days in secular wont. ‘ In the old days,” he pointed out, “-the clergy were poor. But they just manaced to live. Now it is a physical impossibility for them to live on their stipends. What are they to do? It is illegal for a clergyman to engage in work outside his office which is not educational. He may teach, and great numbers of clergy will have to take to teaching in order to live. “This will be a calamity for the church, for a clergyman’s duties do not end with

Sunday work. Visiting, which should have a definite place in his work, will have to cease, and the laity will have to be content with ministers who simply conduct the usual Sunday services. “The only alternative is a celibate priesthood for the Church of Kngland, or a limitation of ordinations so that money available for stipends may be shared by a smaller number of clergy. “ The laity must support their clergy,” the bishop insisted. “ 1 do not believe they are really indifferent. But it is scandalous that a clergyman should live in misery, as I heard of one living a few days ago, getting a pound here and a pound there to make ends meet. “ Richer congregations ought to help the poorer congregations. Why should not a wealthy parish adopt a poor parish, helping to maintain its clergy? I believe that the laity want a lead. Well, the parochial

councils established under the new assembly should provide them with the means of action. I hear that one of these councils, immediately after formation, decided that the curate’s stipend must be raised to £SOO a year, and the vicar’s to £SOO, and guaranteed that the congregation should find the money. That is action on the right lines.” The bishop added that he did not regard £3OO a year as a living wage in these days, but hundreds of clergymen were getting considerably less. The advertisement columns of the clerical papers are eloquent testimony of the poverty of the clergy and of their enforced celibacy. Vicars wanting curates point out again and again that “ only bachelor accommodation is available,” or ask for a single man. “The Rev. T. N. Tattersall, speaking at a Baptist meeting at Northampton, said Baptists had probably the worst paid ministry ” (says the Telegraph). “ Half the

ministers in Northamptonshire had less than £3 a week, and poverty pressed very hardly on these men, so much so that one family of five could afford a butcher’s bill of only 2s a week, while another could not take a holiday, but spent his vacation repairing his children’s boots.” “ A remarkable illustration of the poverty of the clergy was forthcoming at Aldershot, at the diocesan conference, when the rural dean, the Rev. Basil Phillips (Famborough), referred to the scandalous position of clerical distress ” (says the Post). “He mentioned, in urging the necessity of the formation of a committee for the diocese, the tragic case of a clergyman whose little child recently died, because her father had not sufficient money to provide for her. He endeavoured to borrow cash from his friends, and when the necessary sum was forthcoming for his child’s treatment, the girl was dead.”