Now the greedy churches want ordinary tax payers to be charged for the upkeep of ALL their buildings

When I see an archbishop or bishop on the TV I quickly reach for my wallet, because more often or not, they are spinning some line or other that usually involves ordinary citizens handing over (even) more money and/or privileges to them.

So, it’s no surprise to see the Church of England – yes that is the same Church who hold a staggering £5 billion in assets and who are a huge investor in the stock market - is campaigning for working people, the plumbers, the cleaners, office workers and anyone else who pays tax, no matter if they are believers or not – to pay for ALL repairs and upkeep of C of E buildings. They have set up a petition on the Prime Minister’s web site to that effect.

I like how this blog lets the cat out of the bag – it’s not that they haven’t got the money, just they want to spend it on finding converts ("better spent on misson") rather than the dull business of looking after their own premises – why do that when they can mug taxpayers to do if for them instead?

This comes in the same week as the unfortunate Wallbank family being targeted by another greedy church who used ancient, and recently dormant, land laws to fleece them for a gob smacking £200,000 to pay for church building repairs.

I rather hope the over-pampered bishops are told to frock off on this one, but you can never be entirely confident.

Or, how about this for a solution, why doesn’t everyone who ticks the “Christian” box on the Census pay the extra tax burden to subsidise the C of E leaving the rest of us to only pay taxes on the stuff that really matters – I wonder what that might do to the next census results?!

Comments

[null]

That's just disgusting. I've requested a counter petition, I'll report back when/if it's approved.

[Tom Rees]

I'd be happy to pay for the maintenance of these buildings - so long as the CofE was willing to hand over control of 'multi-use' buildings to the state.

We have a lack of secular space in this country - I speak as a parent who has tried to find a suitable space for a child's birthday party *other* than a church hall. And private enterprise can't compete with the Church in the provision of space because of the enormous tax breaks the church gets (which already amount to massive subsidy as it is).

So let the community pay for the maintenance of these historic buildings, but do away with tax breaks for the church and get them to hand over their shared spaces to the community.

Oh well I can dream...

[The Labour Humanist]

Spot on Tom - I was going to make this point. I don't want to billed for church repairs, but I were then it's got to be a case of no taxation without representation! As a non-believer if they want to take my money then I want a say in how it's spent. Any community member regardless of belief should be able to be voted onto any committees running these facilites and I want lots of gay discos and atheist drop in clinics ;-)

[Tom Rees]

Been doing a bit more diggin on this:

"English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) announced on 1 March 2006 a package of grants worth £17.5 million for repairs to 147 Grade I and II* listed churches and chapels across England. Since 2002 £62 million of repair grants has been awarded to more than 700 historic places of worship through the joint scheme, which is the largest single source of funds for work of this kind." http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/server/show/ConWebDoc.6181

A list of all the other sources of money - almost all of them taxpayer money: http://www.churchcare.co.uk/fundraising_majorgrantgivers.php

And they want more??? Presumably they want us to pay more for the upkeep of churches that aren't listed. Hardly a "a national asset". Greedy, selfish - and typically christian!

[null]

The counter petition is up:

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/ChurchPay4Church/