- 11 -
because.. .you'll be told we're all right'"
(C4)
.
Apparently whether or not they really were all right.
2.2.2
Ascertaining clergy needs
Another line of thought - we may reasonably theorise that a person
with a high level of perceived needs will seek a high income, but that
is by no means the entire population, and there is at least a little
circumstantial evidence to suggest that a clergyman's perceived needs
are on a fairly low level. A clergyman speaking in a committee of the
Diocesan Synod: "We clergymen don't want to be well paid, don't want to
be luxuriously kept, but we do want enough to live on so that we don't
have anxieties"
(C7)
; and a clergy wife, speaking in a deanery synod:
"we don't want to talk about this, we do not talk about our stipends,
we are quite satisfied with ours"
(C7)
. Why should they not want to talk
about something that is a principal preoccupation among almost all other
sections of the working population? Embarrassment? Reticence? A
feeling that they should not ask for money but rather "be utterly
grateful for anything you give them"
(C4)
? The absence of such information
is a handicap - by failing to state reasonably clearly what their finan-
cial conditions are like, the clergy, far from facilitating the business
management of the Church, are making it more difficult for the laity to
get beyond the stages of mutual exhortation and groping for that 'more
equitable structure'. There is a strong prima facie case for saying that
clergy not only should not be reluctant, but actually owe a responsibi-
lity to the Church as a whole to state how much they need and how well
they can cope with what they get, in order that the Church can more
adequately arrange its financial affairs.
The Diocesan Secretary again: "The clergy won't fight for them-
selves, because they are in a job they like, the fighting's got to be
done by the laity"
(C4)
, although he did concede that "there are indica-
