NEW COURT FOR CLERGY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 18975, 27 March 1936, Page 8

NEW COURT FOR CLERGY

'' S 0 AND At '' REMEDY PEAR OF PARISH GOSSIP LONDON, Feb. 5. The Church Assembly at its spring session at Westminster, yesterday, gave general approval to. the Ecclesiastical Duties Measure, which provides a disciplinary remedy against. incumbents whose ministry is "scandalous" by reason of misbehaviour and negligence, but who are not guilty of offences under the Clergy Discipline Act of 1892. The measure proposes to make the archdeacon act as prosecutor, cither under the direction or by the permission of the bishop, and further to set up a diocesan committee consisting of six clergy. It was contended that this proposal, while retaining the bishop'si control over the. proceedings, avoided the awkwardness of the bishop first, appearing as the prosecutor and then as the judge who awarded the sentence. The consent of the diocesan committee of six clergy would be necessary before proceedings could be begun. Part two of the measure, relates to cases where there is inadequate performance of ecclesiastical duties, due to the incumbent's mental or bodily infirmity, and not. to his misbehaviour or negligence. •'DISGRUNTLE© PEOPLE" The- Bishop of Norwich, Dr. Pollock, suggested that the motion could be improved. "What could bei worse, for the life of a parish," he asked, "than that six men of known probity and good sense snoui. find themselves confined in a parish where they are sure to be attacked by representations, misrepresentations, or even gossip. "However wise they arc, if they are in the parish, they arc. a.most certain to become a focus of just those very things that we should wish to keep out of all inquiry of this kind. I do not Chink flic diocesan committee will be able to do that work any better than the bishoj can-. "Before I. was a bishop I knew sonicthing about disgruntled people, and 1 certainly should not consider that archdeacons are the only people to llundli these unkind and irrelevant persons who come forward to raise, complaints against their incumbents. "I do riot think it possible to compare the work of a clergyman with the work done by a doctor. Doctors have their Medical Council, which works ftot without some criticism; the Jockey Club is managed by those who are . held worthy to be responsible for the turf, bui, we cannot say that, a clergy/nan, who occupies the, position that lie does in the national church, is in the same position as either a doctor or anyone connected with the turf "The medical service deals, with an optional service ; the. Jockey Club deajs with optional tasted. "When you come to deal with the clergy. yon-'are getting into a. much bigger, much larger, more responsible and more national position, and I believe that in dealing with the clergy you ought to offer to the very high dignity of their office something that is not. on an amateur scale. "What is. the use of trying to make cat's-paw of the archdeacon This, diocesan committee introduces too much publicity in enrly stages. If you get the six men going about the place it is almost certain, not through their own indiscretion, but by human nature, that the whole thing will become much more public than if the bishop quietly sifted the tiling out. for himself, and learnt whether there was a prima facie case." The Rev. C. E. Douglas, of Soulhwark, said the clergy would have liked something resembling the court-martial system of His Majesty's Forces, but it had been agreed that this was not practicable.

The Archbishop of Canterbury said that it was now time that the measure was born, adding: "Once born, yotv can shape the infant as you please,'"'