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February 05, 2007

Sneaky CofE (5bn assets) uses ancient laws to get ordinary citizens to pay for their churches

The Church of England with assets of nearly £5 Billion digs up medieval laws to force couple to pay £200,000 to local church repairs. Anyone for a sermon on morals?

From the BBC:

"A couple have been ordered to pay more than £200,000 for repairs to a church, which falls within land they inherited after the death of an elderly relative. A High Court judge said sheep farmers Andrew and Gail Wallbank, of Carno, Powys, must pay £186,969, plus VAT...The Wallbanks own Glebe Farm, Aston Cantlow near Stratford-upon-Avon, which includes a field called Clanacre. This is classified as rectoral property and makes the couple "lay rectors" of the parish.After the latest hearing, Mrs Wallbank said: "The Church of England has made it inevitable that we will have to sell Clanacre Farm. The law is in a mess." She also accused the church of "not living by its teaching" and of hiding behind an "archaic law".

Posted at 05:50 PM in Religious privilege |

Comments

jp

Wow! Thanks for bringing this to my attention

Posted by: jp | February 06, 2007 at 09:19 AM

The comments to this entry are closed.

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