Sydney's Anglican Church is in grave financial trouble, battered by the global financial crisis and planning further savage spending cuts.The Sydney Morning Herald reports that its archbishop, Peter Jensen, told an annual synod on Monday: "The financial issues are grave."
One of the biggest and richest dioceses in Australia, Sydney leveraged its huge investment portfolio in the boom and sold when the market hit rock bottom. After losing more than $100 million, it was forced to halve its expenditure.
"There was considerable pain," the archbishop told the annual gathering of clergy and laity in Sydney. But it wasn't enough.
"In round terms, it seems possible that the amount of money available ... to support diocesan works in the next few years is going to be reduced from the $7.5 million of 2010 to something like $4 million. Our major rethink of last year was only the beginning."
Among moves being considered is the sale of Bishopscourt, the Gothic mansion on Darling Point where Anglican archbishops have lived since 1910. Real estate agents believe it would fetch more than $25 million. But that would only be a drop in the bucket.
The big picture is that about $200 million in total assets will yield only $4 million a year for at least the next three years. "We are," the archbishop said, "asset-rich but cash-poor."
He blamed boards with an ethos "too trusting of one another and not sufficiently acute in seeking accountability"; he spoke darkly of "unconsidered and unhelpful relationships"; and warned against "the real, fatal and ever-present danger'' of allowing ministries to be taken over by those who do not share the gospel outlook of the diocese.
But he counselled against recrimination, and asked for prayer for a commission that has been set up to resolve cash flow problems, adds the Herald report.
SIC: CTH/AUS