Dear John letter

"Mr Jones' licence is due to be revoked at the end of the year"                                       Source: BBC

LMAs are not a brilliant idea according to the bishop of St Davids. Well, she has her sponsor Barry Morgan to thank for that.

In her address to the St Davids diocesan conference she said, "Unfortunately we do not have the money to keep our normal, proper, well-tried, well-loved and best way of being local church which is having paid stipendiaries as near as possible to a few churches where they can get to know and love everybody. If we could do that. If God would supply us with the money then that is what I would do."

I don't know what the good people of in Cilcennin, Ystrad Aeron, Trefilan and Cribyn will make of that statement.

Their beloved priest, an 82-year-old retired vicar has been told that he can no longer carry out church services because he is "too old to be covered by insurance".

He has been voluntarily conducting services in the Aeron Valley because of a shortage of vicars. He believes the ruling will affect rural churches. "Two churches every Sunday will be short of a Minister to take a service" he said. "There are two of us that help out every Sunday. They will have to rely on lay people to take the service. I'm convinced it will close certain churches if they don't have a regular Minister."

The Rev'd John Emrys Jones who has already held 36 services this year said he was "disappointed" there was not a meeting between the Diocese and retired clergy affected by the decision.

One parishioner said churchgoers were "shocked" and "horrified" by the news. "We don't understand it. We feel they are one of us she said".

The Church in Wales has issued a statement saying: "There has now been further advice giving us hope a solution can be found, thereby allowing these people to continue their ministry within the Diocese."

St Davids is one of six dioceses in the Church in Wales with no sign of reduction as recommended in the Church in Wales (Harries) Review. All make use of retired clergy which makes the decision by bishop Joanna look personal. It has been suggested that it was her way of getting rid of traditionalist clergy.

Busily backpedaling after adverse publicity Joanna should have sought advice from her feminist friend in Llandaff. Bishop June is taking all her clergy on a jolly to Santiago de Compostela with all the insurance implications that involves.

Update

In an abrupt about turn the Church in Wales now says it is "confident" clergy are sufficiently insured "regardless of agedanquot;.

BBC News reports that after receiving sah advice the church issued a new statement stating it was confident all clergy were sufficiently insured and would be able "to continue their valuable service, for which we are extremely grateful".

"We are writing to all those affected and we apologise for the upset and confusion caused," it said.

The Rev'd John Emrys Jones responded graciously. "I don't blame anybody... But there should have been a consultation by the diocese before sending out the letters," he said.

Quite right. A public relations disaster although it must be remembered that when the bishops consult they ignore the results if they don't like what they hear.

Without adverse publicity no doubt there would have been no change.