On the eve of a Bill being introduced by the Welsh bishops at their Governing Body to allow women to become bishops in the Church in Wales - presumably the Holy Spirit wasn't listening last time - comes the news that the Cathedral Church of the Bishop of Llandaff who is also the Archbishop of Wales is all but bankrupt.
The Church in Wales as a whole had an operating deficit last year of £518,000 while Llandaff Cathedral’s accounts show that in the 12 months to December 2012 its spending was £71,673 more than its income. The remedy? The Bishop of Llandaff made a personal appeal to all members of the Cathedral parish’s Electoral Roll to pay more: "It has suggested a weekly sum of £8.56, which is actually less than the average amount of £8.73 given across the Church in Wales. The Church encourages worshippers to give 5% of their take home pay". Many do, even when treated as lepers because they do not subscribe to fashionable fads promoted by their bishops, but for how much longer?
Fewer and fewer worshippers are expected to pay more and more to keep afloat a bloated hierarchy and out of date provincial structure. In politics ministers line up to tell the Prime Minister that it is time to go when things get really bad but relevance to society is only useful in the church if it suits, just as claiming the work of the Holy Spirit if things go according to plan.
Barry Morgan's record is hardly inspirational. The latest in a string of disastrous appointments saw his new Dean disappear overnight - perhaps after looking at the books! How in conscience can the Welsh bishops be proposing such a fundamental change to the Apostolic faith when they have already failed the church so abysmally? If the hierarchy can't be trusted to look after the church they have inherited why should they be trusted to make changes to our patrimony?
The annual contribution of the average Welshman is about $717 American dollars which is far less than the average pledge in our small, upper middle class, declining liberal parish here in the U.S. When really pushed, liberal parishioners can squeeze a few more bucks out of their wallets, so if Wales does not have a good supply of libs to draw from, they really are in trouble if the Bishop is preaching the new revisionist gospel.
ReplyDeleteThe sad reality is that Llandaff Cathedral has been running at a £50k - £60k annual loss for many years, disguised by dipping into the Cathedral reserves and (so the rumours go) by allegedly skimming off some of the money donated/raised specifically to pay for the new organ (the real reason for the temporary reduced specification and subsequent 3 year delay in completing the new organ project perhaps?).
ReplyDeleteBut fear not, ++Barry has applied his incisive intellect and come up with the answer : he wants the Friends of Llandaff Cathedral to give him £30,000 to blow on new happy clappy hymn books on the basis that a few dozen of the copies of the existing hymn books are in a poor state of repair.
Fortunately, the Friends realise that all their future efforts will need to be concentrated on assisting with paying for repairs to the fabric of the building. However, it did not go unremarked that his ungraciousness ++Barry turned down the offer of several rolls of Selotape for repairing the existing damaged hymn books.
The grapevine informs that Archdeacon Peggy the Pilot Jackson has also come up with her own brilliant money-saving plan : move the Cathedral shop stockroom so that the Archbishop and Dean can each have their own Vestry. It's so obvious, why didn't anyone else come up with that ?
Perhaps the looming insolvency is only one of the possible explanations for Janet Henderson's rapid departure but also for the continuing lack of a successor?
An overspent force with no solutions but self harm.
ReplyDeleteBarry spins the church's money like a Los Angeles Casino operator. No problem there old pal. Spending other folks recources is a delight.
ReplyDeleteIn 1997, as bishop of Bang-her, he sacked a'troublesome' priest,squandering £250,000 in one week on an archaic kangaroo court. Later,in what should have been the final stitch, it rose to £305,000.
"Rodney me old son, this time next year we'll be millionaires".
The 'personal appeal' made by the Dark Lord to all members of the Parish Electotral Roll was actually a flysheet incorporated into the October 2012 issue of The Bell when the Cathedral deficit of the previous year was reportedly around £60,000 and several months before the accounts and deficit for the 12 months up to December 2012 were available.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that the 'gullible pewsitters' of Llandaff woke up to ++Barry's lies and proffered him a Harvey Smith salute in response.