The Chair of the Ecclesiastical Judges Association Working Party into Churchyard Memorial Regulations, HH Peter Collier KC, has kindly provided the following explanation of queries raised by the Report
EJA Report: Churchyard Memorial Regulations
I understand that there have been some queries raised about the absence of two documents referred to on p.2 of the Report, and thereafter in more detail, namely a Template Application Form (paras 8.3, 5) and a Template Handbook for the Bereaved (paras 8.57, 61, 73, 75).
The omission was deliberate. The Report and associated documents had been produced by a working party of Ecclesiastical Judges for the use by Chancellors who had been encouraged by the Court of Arches to review their Regulations (see para 1.3 of the Report).
It was our view that the issues involved in making Churchyard Memorial Regulations more up to date and hopefully bringing about greater commonality across dioceses were matters of legitimate interest to the wider church and also to the general public.
The particular two documents which were not published are very much more to do with the nuts and bolts of how those revisions will be put into practice in the dioceses rather than the broader principles lying behind the likely changes of substance. It is likely there will be more variation between dioceses in relation to those nuts and bolts than in relation to substantive changes to the Regulations. It was for that reason that we did not think that wider circulation of those two documents was appropriate at this stage.
Peter Collier
Chair of the Working Party
Comment
The Report was summarized here and reviewed in more detail here. Links to the report, its annexes, and the two documents that make up the draft template are:
- Churchyard Memorials Report v4
- Churchyard Memorials Report – Appendix A – Comparative Table of Diocesan Regulations
- Churchyard Memorials Report – Appendices B-F
- Recommended Template – Additional Matters Order
- Recommended Template – Schedule 1.
Thanks, that makes sense! So long as whatever form is in use here captures all the relevant details, and is clear and straightforward to use, all will be well.
The form currently in use in my diocese is fairly awful, being very unclear as to whether it is intended for use just for faculty applications, or for all applications. (For example, it quotes the faculty application costs, while making no reference to the regular parochial fees; and has only two possible answers for clergy to choose between (“Support” and “Do not support”), whereas there are at least “Yes”, “This needs a faculty, which I support”, and “I cannot support this”.)