Confidential Plan to Sell Australian Anglican Churches
January 3, 2013 5 Comments
Well of course – it has to be – in Virtue Online:
A confidential draft report obtained by the Newcastle Herald reveals the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle could make nine of its 15 Newcastle and Newcastle West churches “redundant” as part of a future growth strategy.
Problems detailed in the report include falling congregation numbers, maintenance problems, lack of financial contributions, no on-site parking, fire risk issues and disconnect with community.
Four of the churches being considered for sale are heritage listed.
The report, put together by consultants NBRS+Partners, has created a storm among parishioners who have labelled it a “disgraceful cash grab”.
Many fear the recommendations will be pushed through before the appointment of a new bishop following the retirement of Dr Brian Farran as Bishop of Newcastle earlier this month.
Administrator of the Diocese, Bishop Peter Stuart, said yesterday he was “disappointed” that the confidential document had been leaked to the Herald.
Bishop Stuart said the review began months ago with full knowledge Dr Farran would be retiring.
“It [the report] does not represent the views of the Diocese but contains preliminary data which will be the subject of consultation in parishes beginning in January,” he said.
“A report on the review will be presented to the Diocesan Council sometime in 2013. At that time the council will consider what action to take.”
Rest here.
The Churches are pictured here. Now, if all the ACCA – TAC’s money wasn’t blown, (we won’t say on what and by who!), we could have actually done something worthwhile, like buy one or two of these buildings…
About Fr Stephen Smuts
Sad but if parking is an issue then i can understand why a new strategy is needed. Some of the are quite attractive from the outside. Don’t know how old they are or what the interior looks like. Also, some list fairly decent numbers of congregants but only one fourth contribute? That is truly sad. They must ne church groupies only interested in socializing.
The other point, they probably wouldn’t sell to ACCA or Ordinariate groups.
Like I said – SAD!
Populations move. In my boyhood, my grandparents’ church was surrounded by a warren of small houses and light industry. The light industry got heavier, the houses fewer. By the time I had left university the parish of maybe a thousand homes was a parish of maybe fifty, and my grandparents’ house was long gone. The church was a magnificent early Victorian building and I remember my grandparents saying that when they first moved into the area it was close to full every Sunday. Influenced heavily by the Oxford movement it had regular weekday services that were also quite well attended. My memory suggests to me that bells and smells were much in evidence.
I believe that at the point it was made redundant (when I was about 25 and an atheist, so getting on for 40 years ago), it had a congregation of a dozen elderly ladies on a good day, and required a lot of money just to keep the lights on and the leaks plugged, let alone warm the place up or redecorate. There were only a handful of houses within the parish, and they were on the other side of a dual carriageway with crossing bridges about half a mile in each direction, and no parking. It was made redundant shortly after the death of the last rector, who was quite elderly and I think had been given the parish as a sort of sinecure for long service. There were attempts to sell it as a conference centre and even a restaurant, but the lack of parking meant that there were no buyers. Within a few years, damp had made the building unsafe. It was demolished, and more warehouses were built in its place.
It was very sad because it was a beautiful building, but the migration of population made its end inevitable.
I don’t know what churches in Australia are generally like, but one of the problems with English churches, particularly ones built since the Reformation, is that all too often they were built without a care for future maintenance, and frequently were far too big for their parishes. One particular church I recall in the East Midlands (of the UK) was enlarged in the 19th Century from what drawings suggest was a beautiful little Saxon church to a magnificent soaring edifice, ostensibly to the glory of God but actually to the glory of the local gentry. The church was so big that the entire population of the village at that time, and the surrounding areas (and bear in mind that there were three other churches within a mile, one of which was almost as large), would scarce have filled half the building. It has been ten years since I’ve been to the village, but I imagine that the modern congregation will fit into the choir stalls, with hundreds of places unoccupied in the three-aisled nave.
This is not uncommon, and I have read that it is at least subconsciously the result of abolishing the gilds and chantries: if a rich person couldn’t be remembered by men of faith, he could at least be remembered by building a whopping great church in the centre of the village.
I think the proof of this particular Australian pudding will be how many new churches are built once the old ones are closed. Nil desperandum, eh? At least, not yet.
After reading this, I am more embittered by the fact that the Los Angeles Cathedral is built with so much money, only to result in a great want of beauty. And it’s not just about that; it’s a whole bunch of layers of issues I have with that cathedral and what it says about the relationship of the Church with the Secular Society surrounding it.
And the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels is small, by the way, for a city that has long surpassed the population of 3 million. There is a vast, vast, vast court yard that is more of a tedious excuse to look at the Taj Mahoney and its underwhelming “noble simplicity” rather than for the Cathedral building itself to glorify God, to say to the world “This Church may be on Earth, but it is not OF the Earth!” What better way to express the struggle between the City of God and the City of Man? But no. We have a statement like “Hey, I’m different, everyone’s different, let’s get along. Because we’re the same anyways.”
One could easily, easily expand the cathedral to seat visitors from the neighboring counties and dioceses, and the many priests and parishioners that arrive on occasions such as the Chrism Mass. But the terrible architecture of the Cathedral made, for example my mother, ask where the entrance was. Where is the front? Where is the rear? Why are there no lavers at the entrance of the cathedral building for ablution? Why is there no tabernacle at the altar, and the Blessed Sacrament is shoved off into some corner? Why are there no statues? Why are there no rails? OBVIOUSLY, there are no intentions to make the Latin Mass be a part of the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles. “But the cathedral is facing east. That’s good, right?” Except the priest isn’t facing East to lead the congregation. What we have is a form of religious entertainment, and not worship. Political Correctness, Multiculturalism, Pluralism, Gender inclusivity, and “niceness” which had dominated the 1970′s, deriving from the influence of Cultural Marxists and heretics who misinterpret the Second Vatican Council, still dominate Los Angeles. Just look at the supposed representation of the Blessed Virgin at the entrance. It looks like an androgynous… something. There is no usage of iconography, other than the really, really subtle moon at the feet, or the “halo” which did not seem intentional. Otherwise, there is nothing which tell the faithful who that person is. Our Lady of Guadalupe, Empress of the Americas, however, is put waaaaaaaay in the back, so Protestants and rabid lesbian/feminist activists won’t be offended and write sarcastic articles in the L.A. Times.
I approached the priest in charge of the Cathedral about it, and he had the -nerve- to say “This Cathedral is both Modern and Traditional.” And my brain, which had been cooked in Art History and early-medieval-to-baroque architecture for 4 years, almost had an aneurysm.
So it breaks my heart to hear that churches that look like churches are destined to be demolished or whatever. And what we Catholics, at least, have to look forward to are spaceship churches. Probably to take people back to Xenu, rather than glorify God through beauty and truth. For example, the newly acquired Crystal Cathedral in the diocese of Orange. Even in renaming it “Christ Cathedral”, it still looks nothing like a church and looks like an office building.
But to end my rant on a high note, I frequent the New Liturgical Movement, and I see something else developing, particularly the concept of “The Other Modern”; this is something I would follow closely. I also see the return of the altar rails. Also, let us remember the driving away of the “gay masses” at the new principal church of the UK Ordinariates. If it can happen there, Let us hope that it will happen in Los Angeles during my lifetime. (The Restoration of Tradition, I meant.)
Here are photos to show all of you how I’m not kidding.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thecrescat/2009/07/your-submissions-make-baby-jesus-cry.html
(#19, #20, and #42 are from the L.A. Cathedral.)
“…the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle could make nine of its 15 Newcastle and Newcastle West churches “redundant” as part of a future growth strategy.”
Says it all!