Parishes abolished

SIR – On October 9 Leicester diocese decided to close down its traditional parishes. This represents a backward step in the Church of England’s bid to save money.

We are told that minsters will be created. These will be nebulous bodies with no specific geographical location and no vicars attached to what were the original parish communities. Parishes will see it as losing their vicar, the vicarage, their local Christian community, and, ultimately, their church building.

Meanwhile, diocesan bureaucracy expands at a giddy pace. Each minster – and there will be about 40 – will have a resident “operations director”, presumably earning around £40,000.

In response, the parishes are saying: we do not need two bishops and two archdeacons. We do not need “mission enablers” and directors of diversity and inclusivity. We do not need directors of giving and human resource management, because we in the parishes have been coming to the conclusion that it would be cheaper to recruit and pay vicars ourselves.

We certainly do not need another 40 operations directors.

Many bishops have gone on record to say that the only way forward is to increase income, not cut central bureaucracy costs. But upwards of 40 per cent of their income comes from parish giving, in the form of the “parish share”, and they are now planning to destroy the parishes. How is this going to increase income?

It almost seems that Christians in this country are faced with a basic dilemma – are we supposed to worship God, or bureaucracy? It appears that the people running the Leicester diocese have already made this decision for us.

Professor R G Faulkner Loughborough, Leicestershire