CARDINAL APPOINTS LAYMAN TO STAFF

CARDINAL HEENAN of Westminster this week appointed a layman to the administrative staff of Westminster Archdiocese. He is Mr. Walter Elfer, 51, of Croydon, Surrey, who will work with Mgr. Bruce Kent, private secretary to the Cardinal, as joint secretary of
the Westminster Diocesan Schools Commission.
His appointment is taken as a further step in the Cardinal's plans to establish a closer relationship between the clergy and the laity and to have lay people directly involved in administering diocesan affairs. Westminster is believed to be the first diocese in the country to make this move.
Mr. Elfer, who was born in Vienna, will work full-time at the Schools Offices after June 1, One of his chief roles will be to establish a closer link between the commission and the teacher and parent associations in the Archdiocese.
For nearly eight years he has been actively involved through the Catholic Parents' and Electors' Association in negotiations with local authorities for new schools.
URGENT NEED
Mgr. Kent, who replaces Fr. John McCoy as secretary, had worked on the commission before he became secretary to Cardinal Heenan. Fr. McCoy, who will now take up parish work in Hertfordshire, considerably expanded the scope of the commission in the past two years to include advising boards of governors on educational developments, acting as a liaison between Catholic schools and local authorities, and helping schools plan their curriculuae.
There is now an urgent need for an expert layman to work full-time as administrator because of the "troubled period" which the archdiocese faces over the next few years. A report released by the Central School Fund this week shows that Westminster will have a total schools debt of f3,500,000 by 1967.
It has a £54 million expansion scheme to provide 18,500 new school places in five years. It also faces the prospect of radical changes in the secondary education system under the Government and the new London borough educational authorities which come into power next week.
The report indicates clearly how the cost of building Catholic 'schools has gone up since 1952. More than £7 million has been spent on schools since then. Of this nearly £4 million was received in grants, over £3 million from local councils, nearly £2-f million from parishes and £178,000 from religious orders.
In the first ten years of the Fund the majority of the schools were eligible for grants varying from 50 to 70 per cent of the total cost. But, the report states, the Majority of schools now being built and those in the immediate building programme, are not eligible for grants.