[...] Mr Faulks, Rector of the united benefice, was accused of "conduct unbecoming or inappropriate to the office and work of a clerk in Holy Orders" after he failed to account for three years of profits for the magazine, amounting to little more than £500 a year.
The tribunal heard that Mr Faulks and his wife Ann wrote, published, distributed and canvassed advertising for the magazine with no help from members of the parochial church council, even though they had been invited by the Rector to get involved. Mr Faulks even paid for equipment on his own credit card.
But when he failed to produce accounts for three years, Mr Faulks, who has suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome and is still unwell, found himself suspected of dishonesty and facing all the might of the Church's new "justice" system, which takes place entirely in private until the end, when the findings are made public.
The tribunal, only the second of its kind to have sat after the new clergy discipline measures superseded the old consistory courts, met at the headquarters of the worldwide Anglican Communion in West London under the chairmanship of Judge David Turner, a circuit judge in Chelmsford and chancellor of the Chester diocese.
Judge Turner and the panel found Mr Faulks had been "culpably inefficient" and had failed repeatedly to keep proper accounts, but gave him merely a conditional discharge, meaning he can return to work as Rector. He had been suspended from one of the parishes, Haselbech, while the case was ongoing.
Mr Faulks told the tribunal that his ill health had been used by some individuals in the parish to bully him. He claimed Haselbech parochial church council had conducted what felt like a "vendetta" against him, with the aim of trying to force him to resign. Read more
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2 comments:
Very, very sad- not just for Mr Faulks, but because of what this means for parish ministry. The Clergy Discipline Measure seems to have given parishoners a perfect weapon to get rid of a vicar they don't like- for instance because he is preaching the gospel.
The people who have brought this case have hurt themselves more than anything else. I know- I have 3 rural parishes. Like most clergy, I don't have a secretary or a church administrator, and I sepnd increasingly large amounts of time on paperwork, with the inevitable result that parishoners complain about not seeing me enough. The result of cases like this will be that clergy spend even more time on admin, making sure that their record keeping is faultless, and less time out in the parish.
But hardly surprising, when we have an Archbishop of Canterbury whose sum total of parish experience is a 3-year honorary curacy when he was a lecturer at Cambridge (and a bishop of Durham who has no parish experience at all). Do our "leaders" actually know or care what parish ministry is like?
Stephen Walton
Marbury, Cheshire
"Do our "leaders" actually know or care what parish ministry is like?"
Do they know? For the most part, not much. Do they care? They think we're doing a grand job.
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