The Parson's Freehold

Why would you give any office-holder absolute security of tenure? It makes no sense in the modern world of accountability, targets and strategic planning. The ‘parson’s freehold’ dates to the time when a clergyman’s tenure (and of course it always was a man) of their parish was a matter of property and revenues, and they were not an employee but a possessor of a package of rights, which, before the equalisation of clerical incomes from the 1960s onwards, produced a lot of money in some places and not as much in others. Of course parish clergy are not exactly employees now, but occupy a strange hinterland increasingly governed by the legal language of ‘common tenure’ , something which exists nowhere outside the Church. In some respects – at least for clergy who didn’t have freehold before the new rules came in ten years ago – common tenure makes for a more secure life: no longer can priests or deacons have their licenses summarily removed by a bishop without explanation or recourse, for instance. But overall, anyone who still has freehold would be nuts to give it up voluntarily.

Of course, bishops who may have enjoyed the security of freehold when they were humble parish priests can only see its disadvantages on their elevation to the episcopate. A priest has to do something positively illegal before they can be levered out of their parsonage house, and even then it isn’t easy. I have heard at least one relatively recent case of an incumbent having to resign after ‘a complete breakdown in pastoral relationships’, freehold notwithstanding, but most of the time, drunkenness, depression, mild neglect of duty, rudeness and ineffectiveness are not enough to make a secure case against a priest, though perhaps if you combined them all, they might.

I am not the last priest in the diocese to be appointed with freehold, but almost the last: possibly the last but one. The vicar of Tophill was in about three weeks after me, and he has it too, a similar administrative oversight: what was the bishop thinking? It wasn’t as though he was about to retire and was blasé about bequeathing a few parochial headaches to his successor, a bit like hiding sardines in the curtain rods. Now, of course, were I to move to another position I would lose it, quite a powerful incentive to staying put until the Lord says pretty unequivocally that I should shift.

I’ve never read anything about the spiritual effects of the parson’s freehold. Christians are supposed to cultivate a sense of distance from what happens to us, a detachment from the torrid ups and downs of community life; a realisation that what really matters about us lies elsewhere, in the realm of the eternal, and we should not lend the petty battles of our earthly existence more weight than they deserve. For those of us who have not yet managed to reach the degree of spiritual equilibrium and development of our Lord, knowing that your home and livelihood can’t be removed from you by accident, malice, or anything other than extreme provocation, does lend a security which not only allows you to smile at the antics of the bishop but also work at dealing more Christianly with those who might dislike or disagree with you than you might otherwise be able to muster. It allows – a degree of objectivity.

Until you take to drink and bolt the rectory door …