Synod Dispute On Higher Stipends

Press, Issue 31095, 25 June 1966, Page 21

Synod Dispute On Higher Stipends

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, June 23.

Two members of the Anglican Synod today threatened to resign from further stewardship work in a dispute over the bill proposing increased stipends for clergy.

The bill, approved in com-’ mittee last night, was later carried unanimously after its' third and final reading today! and the threats were withdrawn.

Archdeacon K. R. Prebble. in the debate, accused the synod of committing itself to raising stipends without knowing how it was going to finance the increases. “I shall not remain on the committee because this is a task I think quite unreal,” he said.

Professor J. Morton said that if the bill was not passed, he would be “discouraged to the point of washing my hands of stewardship in my parish and this diocese.” The Bishop of Auckland (the Rt. Rev. E. A. Gowing)

appealed to both to reconsider their threats of withdrawal.

The bill’s proposer. Professor V. J. Chapman, said he was shocked to hear last night of the plight of some of the younger clergy. “I can’t see how the home of the clergy can be the centre of the parish family if the clergyman is scratching for money, and his wife is forced to go out to work," he said.

If the more prosperous parishes were not prepared to help the poorer ones, then the synod was reduced to individual parishes fighting for their own needs.