This report by Sam McBride was published in the Newsletter on Thursday 4 October 2012 under the headline – Church faces massive finance problems. As well as finance, the report touches on resolving the gay marriage issue, the north-south differences in the church, and the type of church the C of I should be.
Church of Ireland Primate-elect Richard Clarke has warned that the church is facing “massive problems” financially and said that people will have to give more to the church.
The Most Revd Clarke, who was elected by the bishops on Tuesday afternoon at a private retreat, was unveiled on Wednesday as the new Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All-Ireland at a Press conference in Belfast’s St Anne’s Cathedral.
The Archbishop-elect said that the church, which has lost vast sums in investments over recent years because of the economic collapse, was facing difficult financial choices.
He said: “If we allow the mission of the Kingdom of God to be shrunk because of our inability to show generosity then I think we will answer to posterity and answer to God for that. We are going to have to find a new generosity even in straitened times.”
When asked whether that would also mean that he and the other bishops were prepared to take less, he said: “I think most of us actually are.
“We have frozen the stipends of clergy and frozen the stipends of bishops, and in fact in many cases we are making do with less in terms of expenses and how we are using it, but no, there is no point in asking others if one cannot do it [take less].”
Although Dr Clarke said that he did not like the “superficial” labels of ‘conservative’ or ‘liberal’, he has been strongly identified with the liberal wing of the church. However, in 2002 he put one of his clergy on trial for heresy after he denied that Jesus Christ was the son of God.
And, although he has expressed liberal views on homosexuality in the past, at this year’s General Synod he resisted pressure from gay rights groups to vote for the motion which reaffirmed the church’s view of marriage as only being between a man and a woman.
Yesterday, when asked about the church’s north-south divide, the Archbishop-elect said that he believed the church’s fault lines were “more complex” than merely being split at the border.
He said that the elevation to archbishop was “not what I would have envisaged my last phase of ministry as being” and said that he was “overawed . . . but if one was not overawed, one would be, I think, a complete idiot”.
He said that the greatest challenge facing the church was an historic one: “How we communicate with the world. I believe that the task of every Christian disciple is to somehow in his or her own life to uphold the Gospel and to hold up the Gospel to the world, but also in his or her own life.”
And, speaking of how his late wife would not join him in Armagh, Archbishop-elect Clarke said: “It will be a lonely job; it will be lonelier.
“But I was being quite sincere when I said that the sense of warmth from the bishops, saying: We will be there for you, we know that it was a big ask . . . but I do have my son and daughter-in-law and my grandson here. It will be an additional thing, but I take a stoical view – a Christian stoical view – that says: If I’m called to this, if someone is going to die, despite what you want, you get on with it.”
When asked for his view on gay marriage, the Archbishop-elect said: “I would certainly say that for the Church of Ireland, and I would be in full agreement with it, marriage as we understand Christian marriage refers to a man and a woman and we have made that abundantly clear. It has had the total support, I think, of the Church of Ireland.”
Looking at several of the bishops who were present with him yesterday, the Rt Rev Clarke acknowledged that they “come from different perspectives on this”, hinting at some of the recent debate within the House of Bishops.
He said that he did not want to lead “a totalitarian church where the views of one person can hold total sway”.
When asked for his personal view on whether it was acceptable for clergy to enter civil partnerships, he said: “As far as I’m concerned, the church has not actually decided on that and I’m not going to talk about clergy in another diocese.
“In general terms, I want us to have clarity – as you would know, Harold [Miller] and I would hold quite different views but nevertheless I want us to, as a church, move together and therefore we need to work over time.
“What worries me is the notion – at either end of the discussion – that says: We don’t need to; we’re done; those who feel that it’s sorted because it’s simply a matter of a particular reading of particular parts of Scripture, or at the other end that it is sorted because it is a simple matter of justice and there need be no discussion.
“What I want to do is to be patient with one another, to be respectful of one another and together to say: This is not going to be an easy solve. I actually think the Church of Ireland could do [solve] it in a way that I wouldn’t have confidence in other parts of the Anglican Communion.”
The Archbishop-elect said that despite being from the Republic, he was not a stranger to the British identity of many Church of Ireland members in Northern Ireland: “I had an English mother and I had an extraordinarily English wife and therefore I can say that Britishness is not something that I go ‘Ahhh!’ about. But again, it is about what loyalty are we going to put first – is it going to be the Gospel? That’s got to be our primary loyalty and I truly believe that.”
The Archbishop-elect said that he agreed with the views of those who say that Christianity is being sidelined in the public square, and added: “We have bought into a secularist agenda that in some way the default human position is to be without faith and that faith is, if you like, a kind of bolt-on, an add-on extra to what I think AC Grayling calls ‘the natural person’. That to me is a danger . . . faith permeates every part of what you are and it’s not an add-on extra.”