Support for retired Anglican clergy - a new study

Salisbury Cathedral from the Sarum College side of the Cathedral Close where last year's meeting was held

Last year I met researcher Mauro Fornasiero in Salisbury (writes Debbie Thrower). We were both attending a meeting of a number of the Church of England's Clergy Retirement Officers. I was speaking to the group about pastoral care and Anna Chaplaincy and clearly there is synergy in terms of spiritual support offered to individuals post retirement.

Dr Fornasiero's study has now been published. It scopes the current provision made by the Church of England to prepare and support clergy approaching retirement and in retirement. Plus, engaging with the literature on clergy and ministry, it addresses the following questions: What can be learnt from the support that the Church of England provides to retiring and retired clergy? Are there examples of good practice?

You might like to read the full report here. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14704994.2025.2480359

The study finds that the websites of dioceses across the Church of England offer a certain amount of provision for retiring and retired clergy. These initiatives include examples of good practice, which do not necessarily make a distinction between stipendiary and self-supporting clergy, but they address individual needs with the help of some church officers.

'Programmes that support the spiritual and emotional wellbeing of retiring clergy,' he writes, 'like ‘Preparing to retire well and beyond’ and the course of LICC, (the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity) could be used as examples of good practice to mainstream spiritual and emotional support for retiring and retired clergy across the dioceses of -the Church of England. These interventions could be upscaled targeting specific groups of retiring and retired clergy like stipendiary and self-supporting clergy. The upscaling and mainstreaming of these initiatives would benefit from the involvement of Anglican Cathedrals because they capture the notion of episcopal identity. In this episcopal model, ministers would retire and flourish in an ecclesiastical environment where they could work and worship with fellow clergy. Routine evaluations of these interventions would inform better practice.'