The Crown’s right to choose priests

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=42123

[Church Times] 21 July 2007--Responses to the Green Paper The Governance of Britain (News, 6 July) have been generally positive (but see Bishop Buchanan’s reaction). Almost all have concentrated on the senior posts. The Green Paper, however, also makes explicit reference to the 200 Crown livings, as well as a small number of cathedral canonries, which are in the gift of the Queen and filled on recommendations from the Downing Street appointments secretary; and also to the further 450 livings administered by the Lord Chancellor’s office. The Green Paper suggests that these, too, should be governed by the basic principle that the Prime Minister should not take an active part in the selection of individuals.

The subject of patronage is so complex that it is hard to discover who is responsible for what. The bishops and archbishops control 49 per cent of livings, and the Crown about eight per cent. About one third of patrons are private individuals, ecclesiastical societies, or bodies such as Oxford or Cambridge colleges. The reorganisation of benefices in recent years means that, in about one third of parishes, the patronage rotates by turns between two or three patrons.