The Archbishops' letter
Sir: On 8 October a letter was read out in all Anglican churches from the two archbishops declaring their belief in the maintenance of a fully-ordained ministry of the present size and expressing a desire to increase the 300 annually ordained at present to 450, so that a strength of 11,000 will not diminish. On the following Sunday a Church Information pamphlet entitled A Resourceful Church received like publicity: it stated that an extra £29,000,000 must be raised. I feel both missives require further scrutiny. Firstly, a matter of arithmetic: if a priest is ordained at 23 and cannot retire until he is 65, but may go on for many more years (and the Archbishop of Canterbury is 70) an ordination rate of 300 p.a. is more than adequate, for 300 x 40 = 12,000. Secondly, in a semi-socialist state where private charities, like churches, have to compete with state charities, which purchase kidney machines, it will not be easy to raise the sum envisaged. Taxation has destroyed the source upon which private charities have relied in the past; and this entails an altered strategy.
Thirdly, by increasing the number of potential vicars by a third you will fossilize the present structure of the church, for once a vicar is appointed (with or without the 'parson's freehold') you cannot close down a church; and there is some evidence that the Church is wasting its resources in retaining superfluous buildings, as can be seen in the area in which I work.
In Streatham there are eleven Anglican churches, although the Roman Catholic Church has but one. The average number on the electoral roll of each church will be between 100 and 125. This means not only that in its warfare with the Powers of Evil our Church has eleven regiments of platoon strength, but it is prevented from using guerrilla methods. Confined to conventional arms by the need to maintain eleven antiquated forts, the Church has no men to deploy in such experimental services as a Counselling Centre or a school where inadequacies in the state educational system could be met to the accompaniment of Anglican indoctrination. Indeed one can think of many ways in which the money spent on poorly attended and inadequately heated churches could be diverted in order to increase the number of annual conversions.
The clergy, like other professional persons, are prisoners of the structures inside which they work, and the syllabuses it is their task to implement: they cannot put new wine in old bottles, and it would appear that in London the old wine has lost any intoxicating power. I see no harm in mild experimentation; and this could be combined with the maintenance of the parochial system, provided the parishes are so redrawn as to allow for 600 on every electoral roll.
Frank Dossetor, St. Andrew's Vicarage, Guildersfield Road, London S.W. 16
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