Topic of the week – Time to reorganise our dioceses

I agree with Rev. Martin Saunders’ points in his letter on reorganisation of the diocesan structure of our Church about lifting us all into the new epoch of an apostolic Church (7 March).

My parish of St Mary and St George in Totnes is part of the Plymouth diocese to which Bishop Nicholas Hudson has recently been installed, after more than three years without a bishop and slowly dying for lack of leadership in becoming a synodal church.

Our weekly mass attendance is around 50 to 60 parishioners. Our separate presbytery is a listed building in the town centre. It houses our peripatetic priest, who is responsible for two other churches.

We have just learned that our church building needs thousands of pounds for repairs and refurbishment. We need to sell the presbytery, which is an enormous drain on parish finances, and find something more suitable for our parish priest. But without a bishop, we cannot do anything.

As Rev. Saunders has highlighted, a reorganisation of the institution to make it competent in the current situation would release funding to deal with situations like ours and allow us to become the new synodal Catholic Church we were called to become by the Second Vatican Council.

Maurice Magee
Paignton, Devon

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