by Chris Bishop, Eastern Daily Press
Father Clive Wylie answered the call almost 40 years ago and now works almost every hour God sends him tending a flock scattered across 14 churches covering a sizeable slew of rural Norfolk.
Country clergy are currently caught in a seemingly perfect storm, as calls mount for the Church of England to spend more of the income it earns on investments worth billions to fund more priests.
As numbers dwindle, those who remain are left covering increasing numbers of vacant parishes as recruitment stalls – with the average parson now looking after six places of worship, while vacancies can take years to fill.
Campaign group Save The Parish, which wants the church to plough more money into the grassroots, organised a meeting attended by almost 100 people in Norwich.
It heard while the Church Commissioners manage £11.6bn in assets, little of the income it receives from them reaches parishes because it was spent on bishops, cathedrals and wider church initiatives – the most controversial of which is a policy to spend £100m on reparations for slavery.
It says as demands mount on priests, many go off sick through stress or retire early, while the number leaving is outstripping those who are coming forward.