By PETER °KELL
BISHOP HOLLAND of -2-1' Salford has appealed to
people in his diocese to support the Diocesan Covenant scheme. With the diocese now running a £1,500,000 deficit on school building, he sees this as one of the means of reduc ing the debt.
The Salford diocese has spent i12 million on new schools since 1953. Now the whole school-building programme is threatened with collapse unless the debt can be paid off.
Already the annual amount paid by parishes to the school building fund has doubled, but support is falling off for the traditional ways of raising money, such as la:ngo and football pools.
Fr. Louis Sharp, who was responsible for starting Covenants in the diocese. told me: "This is not the complete answer, but it can go a long way to help".
In the Southwark diocese, which is not much bigger than Salford, he pointed out. they are claiming £100,000 a year from the Covenant Scheme.
Speaking at the annual general meeting of the Salford Covenant Scheme at the Cathedral Assembly rooms last Saturday. but without making reference to the schools crisis, Ffshop Holland appealed to people to support the scheme.
"This is a rich vein of gold," he said, "and we must exploit it."
We would he fools not to take advantage of this means of income which the statutory laws of the country allowed, he remarked.
One of the diocesan organisers, Mr. Edmund Mulryan, told me that the diocese had reclaimed nearly £80.000 since the scheme was started five years ago. "We anticipate that the claim for the present tax year will not be less than £45,000," he added.