The Anglican Church in Sydney is in diabolical trouble. Already battered by the global financial crisis, the diocese is planning further savage spending cuts.
The archbishop, Peter Jensen, told the annual synod on Monday: “The financial issues are grave.”
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One of the biggest and richest dioceses in Australia, Sydney leveraged its huge investment portfolio in the boom and sold when the market hit rock bottom. After losing more than $100 million, it was forced to halve its expenditure. “There was considerable pain,” the archbishop told the annual gathering of clergy and laity in Sydney. But it wasn’t enough.
“In round terms, it seems possible that the amount of money available ”¦ to support diocesan works in the next few years is going to be reduced from the $7.5 million of 2010 to something like $4 million. Our major rethink of last year was only the beginning.”
[i] Ad hominem comment deleted by elf. [/i]
I’m not an Anglican and I don’t live in Sydney – but I do know Peter J. He is the very furthest person I know from a “man of arrogance”.
Please don’t make personal comments like this – they only exasperate those people who know and love Peter. As for his not being a man of the gospel . . . words fail me.
Sydney diocese is attempting to deal with the legacy of a century and a half of dependence on investments. Cut them some slack and pray for them.
What nonsense you write, Antistes. It is neither true nor charitable.
Archbishop Jensen did not cause the global financial crisis. He did not select nor arrange the Sydney diocesan portfolio. He did not put into place the financial management structure that apparently exacerbated the portfolio loss. He did not cause the contractor who built St Andrew’s House to go under, leading the diocese to invest its funds into commercial real estate in order not to lose the property (if so, Archbishop Loane must have been under his nefarious spell).
He is not arrogant. From my interactions with him, I have found him to be one of the most accessible of all of the leaders of the Anglican Communion—-open, honest, a pleasant companion, a thoroughly decent fellow.
If numbers are the mark of God’s favor, what then are we to make of the 5 per cent growth in attendance Sydney recorded last year?
While one may disagree or be unpersuaded by some of the theological arguments Archbishop Jensen has taken, it is untrue, and unkind to denigrate his character.
George Conger
Vero Beach, FL