The Church of England has been accused of scoring an “extraordinary” own goal spending hundreds of thousands of pounds buying a house for a bishop so he would not live in the grandeur of a medieval palace.
The Church Commissioners, the Church’s property arm, announced last month that the next bishop of Bath and Wells will not live in the 800-year-old palace occupied by his predecessors.
Instead, the Rt Rev Peter Hancock will be housed in a property outside Wells offering greater “privacy” and which would be more “conducive to effective ministry and mission”.
OK, people who live in glass palaces shouldn’t throw stones, but it does seem that the obvious comment here is that the Pope lives in a hotel. 🙂 (And has no family to be accomodated.)
A curious decision. On the prior bishop Peter Price’s retirement, Archbishop Williams at General Synod spoke warmly about the huge restoration and upgrading Price had just completed of the Bishop’s Palace at Wells as the major achievement of his episcopacy, presumably at collosal expense. Rather sad as a measure of achievement I thought at the time.
Oh well, it is only money, I suppose. It is not as though we have anything better to spend it on like mission or pensions or the like.
It is a challenging diocese. Somerset County has a strong neopagan presence. I regret that a decision in which the bishop-elect did not participate is casting a cloud on his office.
A prayer may be found [url=http://anglicanprayer.wordpress.com/2013/12/12/bath-and-wells/]here[/url]. More can be found by using the search box at Lent & Beyond.
#2 A very curious decision indeed! The only way this makes financial sense is if the palace was to be sold or closed off to reduce upkeep – just imagine what not feeding the swans alone would save! One wonders just what is going on.
#3 Quite correct about “neopagan”, but isn’t the new bishop himself rather unorthodox?