THE THREAT TO THE CITY CHURCHES
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sin,—The Union of Benefices (Metropolis) Measure passed by the Church Assembly calls for the opposition of all who value the Reformation settlement of religion. For the measure is another and a more insidious and less honest move in the attempt to turn the City Churches into cash which ecclesiastical authoritids may then spend as they please. A general Union of Benefices measure is already . law, but it specially excepted the City of London from its scope. This new measure, however, masks its objective, v:z., the City of London under a figment of its own which it calls the " Metropolis." It takes powers not only to dispose - of Churches and their sites and all their goods and chattels, but what is worse—and here the cloven hoof appears--to • unite any number of benefices under one principal Church, leaving the subordinate churches liable to be attacked and disposed of under the specious plea of being no longer needed.
St. Ethelburga's Parochial Council passed on the 19th inst. the following resolution :--
"INASMUCH as the Union of Benefices and Disposal of Churches (Metropolis) Measure 1924 passed by the Church Assembly gives powers to a Benefices Board consisting of 35 members of whom a majority are ecclesiastical persons ; and inasmuch as those powers extend to the union of benefices and the pulling down or removal of any Church, or to the sale and appropriation of such church for any purpose other than the ordinary public services of the Church ; and inasmuch as the ancient rights of the vestries are ignored, and the historical continuity of parochial life in the Metropolis endangered by the threatened removal of ancient landmarks : this Parochial Church Council of St. Ethelburga's, Bishopsgate, . requests the Corporation of the City of London and the Members of Parliament for the City to offer every possible resistance to this Measure as uncalled for, dishonest and a violation of the rights of the laity."
It is good to know that the Corporation of the City of London has resolved to petition Parliament against this attempt on the part of a body of ecclesiastics and ecclesiastic- ally-minded laymen to rob the laity of their ancient rights, to remove their neighbours' landmarks, and to show how easy it is to be religious at the expense of somebody else.—
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