HALF-PAY VICARS

Waikato Times, Volume 110, Issue 18378, 11 July 1931, Page 3

HALF-PAY VICARS

CANON’S PLEA. “LET CHURCH APPOINT BISHOPS.” Canon A. S. Crawley, secretary of the Diocese of St. Albans, made a plea for changes in the administration of the Ghurch of England, says a London paper.

Among the proposals are power to remove or transfer clergymen, alterations in the patronage system, closing of redundant churches, more deaconesses, wireless services, and special omnibuses to take people to church. Canon Crawley said to a London Daily Mall reporter:— “Many church people will be grateful for the publicity you have given to the proposals for the reorganisation of our parochial system. It is most desirable that action should be taken by the Church Assembly to put Into force some of the recommendations. Drastic and far-reaching as many of the proposals may seem, they might well be more drastic still. The. special commission appointed to study the question has aimed not at what is ideal, but at what is Immediately practical. I wish It had been a'llttle bolder—less deferential to ancient rights and traditions. We cannot for ever be controlled by the dead hand. I hope that a really comprehensive measure will be introduced in the Church Assembly which will not only provide for the constitutional appointment of bishops by the Church itself, but will also give them powder, acting with specially appointed advisers, to retire incumbents, who are too old, to remove the negligent, and to adjust the square pegs and the round holes." square pegs and the round holes.” The measure, concluded Canon Crawley, should also provide for the redistribution of endowments and for their concentration in the hands of the diocesan authorities, so that they might put a man on half-pay or adjust stipends.