John Rowe writing to the Church in the 1960s

I found this amongst the papers of Fr John Rowe. It was likely written by him on behalf of the Worker Church Group in the 1960s. Keep that decade in mind when reading it. 

A Straw in the Wind
"Everyone knows that financial necessities are causing bishops to ordain men in secular jobs, or to license already-ordained clergy who have left the paid ministry for such jobs. More and more parishes are being amalgamated and, as the remaining full-time parochial ministry is stretched over ever larger areas, more usefulness comes to be seen in a non-stipendiary clergy.

Some of us have for many years practised a non-stipendiary priesthood. We think there are values in it which go far beyond those of a purely “supplementary” ministry. We think priesthood is something that can be lived and practised by a man who earns his living in any ordinary employment, and that such a priesthood has its greatest value not in the assistance it can render to the traditional parochial ministry, but rather in its penetration of the common social and working life of the nation.

The times demand something more than the building up of congregations, valuable as this is. Examples are needed of a churchly self-forgetfulness in which the Church’s own corporate life is seen to take second place in the priestly ministry; in which, indeed, that ministry hides itself a little from the public eye and does not seek to establish overtly or explicitly Christian “things” or circles.

Members of the Worker Church Group feel qualified to recommend to ordinands and younger clergy this kind of approach in general. But also, in particular, they are able to give reasons for their commitment to industrial jobs at shop-floor level. They can tell of their experience as priests and workers at this level and give reasons why they think it a relevant Christian, and priestly, experience.

Would theological colleges and post-ordination training groups not consider it worthwhile to meet and talk to a priest who has been a miner for five years, a worker even longer, and a parish priest throughout? Or one who has been a brewery worker for eighteen years? Or a long-standing employee of the North Thames Gas Board, now ordained and living his priesthood in that setting? Or a Post Office worker in a similar situation? Or a priest and car-worker, many years active in trade unionism?

New times call for new approaches, without abandoning the old. We offer our experience, for information and discussion, in the cause of the Kingdom of God."