Here's a question for all of you who think a priest is always a priest:
What do I answer when I am asked what my occupation (not my normal occupation) is? As far as I can work out my occupation at present is "unemployed." That is what I have to write on the many forms I have to fill in nowadays in order to clam my £63 per week hand out.
If my occupation was "priest" and is now "unemployed," I must have suffered from ontological reversal at the end of August last year.
Howabout: unemployed minister of religion?
ReplyDeletePriest is status, vicar/curate is job.
So unemployed associate vicar/ assistant curate would hit the spot
You're not unemployed.
ReplyDeleteYou're just uncompensated. (Story of My Life!)
I agree with you entirely, JCF, but that wouldn't wash with English bureaucrats.
ReplyDeleteThere are priests aplenty who are compensated who could similarily be decribed as unemployed. You really shouldn't conflate the two concepts.
ReplyDeleteThis is a practical question. What do I write on the forms?
ReplyDeleteYou've been ordered a priest, and your employment has terminated, so you are an "unemployed priest". Or you could say that your occupation is "jobseeker", but that doesn't differentiate you from the rest of the people filling out the forms. Or since you are a priest without a cure, you could confuse the bureaucrats with a classical education and write "sinecure", but I'd recommend against it.
ReplyDeleteWrite unemployed, it is a question regarding your current job status, not your vocation and training.
ReplyDeleteDoes an unemployed surgeon cease to be a surgeon simply because s/he is unemployed, Reverend?
Technically you are at present an unemployed Clerk in Holy Orders. (And as an aside I would suggest you have an error in your sidebar description ... You are not a "licensed Church of England priest", that's the whole point - you do not at the moment have a licence. You are an "ordained Church of England priest".
ReplyDeleteOver here, my occupation is implementation consultant, my status is unemployed. Given that we are two peoples separated by a common language I dunno how that translates. Really, I think the form is not a commitment to do anything other than take the money.
ReplyDeleteFWIW
jimB
When was Madpriest's licence revoked? I think Madpriest is a licensed priest but unemployed. He has to be notified in writing if his lincense is revoked but I may have missed that sad news. But I hope that his lincense is not revoked because otherwise he would not be looking for employment as an Anglican priest. My father's lincense was unfairly withdrawn by Kunonga but immediately reinstated when there was a legimate bishop. I am still holding out that Madpriest will find a place to serve God and God's people fully.
ReplyDelete