The news that York Minster has raised £10,000 by auctioning off medieval stones has been met with predictable outrage. Yet it is a small reflection of how stretched the Church of England is when it comes to maintaining buildings that are intrinsic to the nation’s fabric. York Minster is the largest Gothic cathedral in northern Europe, and one of Britain’s most popular tourist attractions. Ten thousand pounds just about covers its running costs for a day. What price a few old stones in the context of the millions needed for the restoration?

Although congregations have fallen, our churches and cathedrals are still the punctuation points in the landscape, and a powerful connection to our history. We take them for granted at our peril. The Church of England is responsible for a staggering 45 per cent of the Grade I listed buildings in the country. At the start of this year, the Bishop of London gave warning that many of these would soon have to close without more funds. He compared the £23 million grant given by the Arts Council last year to the Royal Opera House with the £26 million given by English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund to maintain all of the country’s listed churches. Although the essence of a church is that it is not a state institution, this disparity still seems extraordinary.

The Government’s steady reduction in its overall grant to English Heritage has resulted in a near-fatal drop in the amounts available for church maintenance. The English Heritage grant for the restoration of England’s 42 cathedrals, which reached £4 million a year at its peak, is down to £1 million a year today. The era of larger grants enabled cathedrals to clear a backlog of urgent, vital work. A new backlog is now building. Costly health and safety requirements and red tape are only contributing to that total.

Part of the answer must surely be to make more use of entry charges. Only a minority of cathedrals have entry fees, including York and St Paul’s. Not all are in places that would merit them. Yet others have consistently voted against charging for access, on the ground that these are churches and not tourist attractions. While this stance is entirely understandable, fees will become unavoidable if the Church cannot put its money where its soul is.

One puzzle that arises from all this is why the Church of England is in such a parlous financial state. Its property and share holdings are worth almost £5 billion. It owns shopping malls across the country, including the Metro Centre in Gateshead, and land in Ashford, Kent, that should surge in price under John Prescott’s housing strategy. Disastrous property speculation in the 1980s, which lost the Church about £800 million, was followed by drift and timidity. Yet in the past few years the Church Commissioners have started to turn things around. Last year they made a 19.1 per cent return on their investments, outdoing many pension funds, a result made even more impressive by the need to avoid various “sinful” stocks.

The Church Commissioners can give only limited help to cathedrals, under the Church’s own constitution. But they could surely extend more of their new-found wealth to parish church roofs and stonework. They should also make a strong case for churches as forces for social cohesion, deserving of help not just as historic buildings but as active community centres. Neglect is not an option.