Christian eviction from a palatial lifestyle

The press has reported that the Church Commissioners wish to evict the Bishop of Portsmouth from his residence, Bishopswood, at Fareham. I did not know it had come to eviction, but the general business of getting bishops out of palaces - and even out of just-less-than-palatial stately homes - seems to me to have everything to commend it. It certainly has the New Testament as its primary backing.

The process is already well in train. The last grand residence to go was Fulham Palace, where Bishops of London had lived for hundreds of years (and went to Westminster by boat), until Gerald Ellison vacated it and went to a town house in Westminster. But over the years, one by one the enormous residences have been vacated. Another famous one in this century was the Palace at Cuddesdon, where Bishops of Oxford used to reside.

The point that appears to be moving the commissioners is the upkeep (pounds 37,500 per annum was stated to be the cost of maintaining the seven- acre estate at Fareham) which, for all the diocesan bishops put together, is running out at more than pounds 1.5m each year. That is a fearful sum. If it could be reduced to one-tenth of the total, the savings concerned would pay the stipends of nearly 100 other clergy.

But, to my mind, the bigger problem is symbolic. Even if individual bishops are cold in their homes, or short of personal cash, the apparent opulence of style provided by palaces, luxury cars and the like gives entirely the wrong message to the ordinary Christians of the land. These displays of magnificence give out three messages: that the commissioners have still got an unlimited amount of wealth in hand; that their priority is taking care of the upper echelons of the church and its expensive buildings; and that laying out for material comfort on earth is more important to privileged parts of the church than is the idea of "laying up treasure in heaven".

Although I approve of the passing of the extraordinary residences, and see few people crying for their return in places where they have already gone, I also recoil at that word "eviction". Was not the Bishop of Portsmouth told of the nature of the residence when he accepted the post from Her Majesty's right-hand man last year? Was not that part of the actual calling he accepted?

If so, then even to bring public suggestions that he should now vacate is improper and unreasonable and puts him and his family under undue pressure. I would think there might be questions asked in General Synod as well as in the columns of newspapers.

The writer is Assistant Bishop, Diocese of Rochester