Brantley, an Anglican Rite Old Catholic priest, recently reported that "the online campaigns were less than successful" but their congregation based campaign has at present raised nearly $US2000 for mission funding on the island.

Pitcairn is the last place in the Pacific to see a Union Jack flying over British territory. It is fast becoming depopulated, and efforts to get more people to live there have not been successful.

An official report has indicated its 49 mostly mainly older inhabitants of Pitcairn may have to move to New Zealand, 5500 kilometres away, leaving the 4.6-square-kilometre rock to nature.

But Brantley is persisting with his plan. He says there are four stages for reaching his goal. The first stage of initial fund raising is about to conclude.

In the next few months the next stage will begin. It involves preparing boxes of literature and further fund raising.

Then in 2018 he hopes to send a mission priest to Pitcairn to work and with local people.

Brantley says the priest will not be trying to be to convert the people. He will build a relationship with the community and relay back to the USA what the population needs.

Finally, if all goes well, they will work to meet those needs and settle 2 or 3 Anglican families on the island.

Brantley is the vicar at Holyrood in North Carolina. The Holyrood website says it is "a small community of believers based in Princeton, NC who welcome you to worship, fellowship, and study with us as we continue in the faith of our fathers according to the Anglican tradition."

"Here at Holyrood we currently hold our services in our Vicar's living room and worship using historic Anglican liturgies from the Book of Common Prayer."

Source

• Supplied
• holyroodnc.webs.com
• Image: i.dailymail.co.uk

The St Helena Star in the United States reported that John Brantley, who claims to be an Anglican Rite Old Catholic priest, is hoping to get to Pitcairn.

At present, the Seventh Day Adventist Church is the only form of organised religion on Pitcairn.

The Star article stated the isolated island's population is about 60, with about 25 being active Adventists.

A Saturday worship service draws between 20 and 45 people.

But there are members of other faiths on Pitcairn including Buddhists, Catholics and Protestants.

An article in the Wall Street Journal last month puts the population at only 49, with many of them at or near retirement age.

Locals are trying to encourage immigration to the remote island 5300kms east of New Zealand, but without success.

"We have heard rumours about this Anglican clergyman coming to Pitcairn," Pitcairner Kari Young said.

"If he does come, he will have to go through the same process as other immigrants or visitors, we can't discriminate," she said.

"I doubt if anyone here will be keen to attend his church meetings though," she added.

Meralda Warren, another Pitcairner, said: "We have had many people come to try and turn the Pitcairn Island people to their religion."

"I am not a not a church-goer, but I do believe in God. People like our current (Seventh-day Adventist) pastor, who is from Tahiti, a genuine believer, are the kind of people we listen to," she said.

Pitcairners are descended from sailors who mutinied on the HMS Bounty and the Polynesians who accompanied them.

In the 19th century, Anglicanism was the faith of the islanders, although for much of that time they had no clergy.

In the 1870s and 1880s, Adventism established a presence on Pitcairn.

According to the funding website, Indiegogo.com, Brantley's appeal for funds started on June 22 and is set to close on August 21.

With 23 days left, no one had donated.

A sex-abuse scandal in 2004 saw several Pitcairn men convicted and sentenced to imprisonment.

Sources

• St Helena Star
• Wall Street Journal
• Image: Big World Out There