People like to think of the Archbishop of Canterbury as a kindly, muddled professor trying against all odds to hold a fractured church together. This may be true but, if honest, I am beginning to wonder. Is he really as inept, vague and non-partisan as he appears? Or is he secretly playing ‘the bumbling Dumbledore’ to cast smoke and mirrors over his true intentions? I say that because there is a pattern emerging under his leadership that is deeply disturbing.
Whenever a new crisis emerges, which is often on his watch, ++Rowan reacts by delivering clotted, dull and long winded responses that do little to address the situation but which cleverly allow everyone to hear what they desire. Today’s presidential address is a supreme example. I have scoured the opaque transcript twice and am still unable to say what its useful purpose really is. Yes it encourages charity, yes it aknowledges pain on both sides but it does absolutely nothing to move the situation forward. Now if Rowan is as bright as people say this can only be a deliberate ploy. Let me provide an example using a paragraph taken from his speech.
“But there is the simpler sense of three-dimensionality which just reminds us that the other we meet is the person he or she is, not the person we have created in our fantasies. The priest from Forward in Faith finds himself going to a woman priest for spiritual counsel because he has recognised an authenticity in her ministry from which he can be enriched. The Christian feminist recognises that the Resolution C parish down the road has a better programme for community regeneration than any other in the deanery.”
What is the purpose of this pithy scenario other than to point out the very obvious need for love and respect? Ok- that is nice but how does this even begin to address the issue at hand which is the theological validity of women as bishops? In truth it offers nothing at all. Good manners and respect, however laudable, do little to overcome the question of sacramental validity. Which leads to the farce in this scenario- unless ++Rowan offers something better than the Revision Committee have given us- resolution ‘C’ parishes will not even exist!! So this imagined scenario is more ridiculous than ever!!!! We needed an issue tackled and instead we got a fairy story set in an impossible future!
Now the Archbishop is no fool and well versed in what is at stake, so why does he utter platitudes on the darkest day in Anglo-Catholic history? If he REALLY wanted to help he could have demanded provision but instead he merely makes the obvious point that provision is what we desire! And so my cynical mind grows suspicious….is he playing the impartial referee to make us assume that he cares? Is his real intention our passing for the benefit of perceived progression?
One only needs look at Church life under his tenure to put two and two together. I fear ++Rowan plays a clever game, presenting himself as potty and out of control, when in fact he is orchestrating things exactly as intended. If you ignore his double-edged words and simply judge his actions, this notion gains weight. For ++Rowan did nothing to discipline the American church over the gay issue, played for time and created confusing procedure to shift focus and divert the energy of conservatives, replaced Jeffrey John with another believing no different, watched whilst Synod betrayed traditionalists over women bishops..the list goes on.
Hmmm….pathetically weak leader or very skilful player? In truth it matters not for the liberal agenda rolls on and the game is surely up for the Catholics…at least in this corrupt communion!
My understanding is that Canterbury, York, London, Durham and Winchester (The Power Five – as Noel might refer to them on “Deal or No Deal”) will all vote against Manchester’s current meagre offering which allows no place of honour for Traditionalists within the Established Church. If that is their intention then Canons Jane and Lucy will have to delay their shopping trip to Wipples and its back to the Drawing Board for Nigel and his Revision Committee.
Father, you describe good manners and respect as laudable. Alas, I detect little of these virtues in what you write about “Rowan our Archbishop”.
If this is true then he is chronically weak as a leader. You name me an other organisation or church where the man in charge has no idea what a crucial committee is going to say ahead of schedule?? He could and should have amended this before it was
read and not undermined Manchester publically! Alternatively he did know and just wants to make the right
noises, July 2008 was ample proof of bug bishops saying one thing whilst allowing their synod to vote another.
So as I say: either so weak as to be utterly ineffectual else playing a subtle game. The only other alternative is that he is tortured but nevertheless thinks we should go. If I have been uncharitable I am sorry, but I am hurting
If this is true then he is chronically weak as a leader. You name me an other organisation or church where the man in charge has no idea what a crucial committee is going to say ahead of schedule?? He could and should have amended this before it was
read and not undermined Manchester publically! Alternatively he did know and just wants to make the right
noises, July 2008 was ample proof of bug bishops saying one thing whilst allowing their synod to vote another.
So as I say: either so weak as to be utterly ineffectual else playing a subtle game. The only other alternative is that he is tortured but nevertheless thinks we should go. If I have been uncharitable I am sorry, but I am hurting and cannot help but note that charity and goodmanners are only ever required from us grads after w have been kicked in the teeth. It seems less important when the libs are consecrating gay divorcees or refusing us space or changing doctrine at whim. Indeed my flabber is ghasted that I am accused of bad manners having just been left homeless with a family on point of principle!!!
As a Anglo Catholic through my sixty six years – at present living in Australia – but returning to England in three months time, I much regret the tone of your contribution. I recognise and understand the deep sense of betrayal (the failure, it looks, to maintain an honoured place for those opposed to the Ordination of Women to the priesthood or as Bishops), but I cannot abide the final comment that this is a Corrupt Communion.
I happen to believe that we have a faithful and loving God Who will not let His Church down (or His world). I recognise that within the Communion of Anglicans there are those who have with integrity to sustain very different positions on a range of issues.
I have read the Archbishop’s address to Synod carefully, and I believe that it is a very profound and faithful response to
the temptations to strident certainty on all sides in the Church. It will be for the General Synod to reflect and meditate on the Christian care with which he explored our issues. I thank God today for the Archbishop, and will pray that the Church of England finds ways of responding to his holy wisdom.
I am longing for the angry catholics in our communion to move forward humbly, and learn anew God’s ability to never let us down.
I’m afraid that your continued railing agains ++Rowan disturbs me greatly. He is in a very difficult place and whether you like it or not, he is our Archbishop.
You continue to rant against the movement towards Women Bishops and how generous and great a leader Pope Benedict is; although I have a good number of RC friends who can’t wait until he departs; and are praying for the day the RC church ordains women.
Whilst priesthood is very much a vocation as opposed to a job, you receive a stipend from the Church of England. I know that in many an occupation (and I include vocations where a stipend is received), so many rants against the person leading that organisation would lead to questions as to whether the individual was suitable to continue receiving funding from that organisation. Certainly in the secular world, if I was to go on a similar crusade, I would find myself out of a job!
I appreciate that you are both angry and hurt as to what’s happening to the church. However, I sense that there should be a certain amount of inward and private reflection on this rather than a very public outpouring of heated emotion that comes across as bitterness and as a result, I feel, achieves nothing.
I quite agree. How can you possibly trust a silly old man who still believes in deities in this day and age?
Here is how I read the relevant parts of the Archbishop’s address.
Message to traditionalists: Don’t give up on us yet, chaps.
Message to Synod: What’s presently on offer (viz. delegated oversight) isn’t good eno’, please come up with something better.
Questions:
1. Williams may will the end, but does he will the means? (Is he prepared to bang heads together, etc.? Remember: post-1992 Habgood was prepared to go over the heads of the Synod to produce the P.E.V. system (today Ms Rees would call it “defying the will of Synod” as he revived an option that had specifically been rejected at an earlier stage.) A clear and unambiguous statement that this is what he wants would be a nice start …. [hmmmm ... this is Williams we're talking about.]
2. If the intention is there (to use the means as well as will the end), does he in fact have the capability to deliver? Can he get the Synod (not least his brother bishops, who as a group don’t seem to be with him, tho’ the seniors may be) to reject the option they have decided on and come up with something new, especially as it has taken so long to get to this point and everyone (pro-, anti- and those who don’t care greatly) is heartily sick of the whole business.
3. Is the thing he wants even possible? Williams has an almost pathological inability to accept that apparently opposing positions are irreconcilable. Sometimes of course such a perception is true, and deeper investigation leads to resolution, but sometimes it’s simply false. Circles do exist and they cannot be squared (this side of eternity).
Dear Father David, what a lovely world he inhabits. The “Power Five” vote against the Manchester proposal so everything is lovely. Not a bit. First, the Power Five are unlikely to carry the House of Bishops. And if they did and the whole thing were delayed yet again? The fury of the lady priests in synod (and outside) would be unbounded. And next time, the bishops would cave in because they are more afraid of the women than of losing the catholics. But meanwhile it is to their advantage to delay things just a little more in the hope that we will weaken, and more of us will be reazdy to accept some shabby little offering of ‘transferred authority’ or ‘a Society model) or some such .. since the fewer of us who leave, the better for the finances of the CofE plc… which is the real bottom line of the debate.
I know that this is not a very useful comment, but I am still in fits of laughter from your “bumbling Dumbledore” phrase.
Absolutely classic and very apt. All ++
DumbledoreWilliams needs is his wand of power, to make it all better….Albus Dumbledore? What’s he doing consorting with Emperor Palpatine?
Dear Fr Ed,
This is meant as a kind suggestion. The Roman Catholic Church do not tolerate priests criticising their Bishops in public and are very unlikely to ordain a man who does so in his previous communion. Say what you like about their orders – you are showing an inability to accept their authority, no matter what you think of it. Please take this in the spirit in which it is meant, I have experience of these matters.
I have no doubt that whoknowsthetruth (should that not include a question mark?) has many Catholic friends who can’t abide the pope and pray for women to be ordained. The point is that the Catholic Church, including the Pope, has not got the authority to make such an innovation. Papal authority cannot be exercised creatively in this way. I am well aware of flimsy searches for precedents in the “deaconesses” of the “early church”, as well as changing papal attitudes towards such issues as slavery, Galileo, the necessity of the papal states, but it would be a gross category error to think that women’s ordination is something that can be similarly changed. Of course there will be Catholics who, like liberal Anglicans, believe that this can be changed. I’m sure that there are some Catholic bishops who privately harbour such beliefs. They may even conceivably one day be a schism on the issue in some of the more affluent regions of the world, but the Catholic Church as a whole will survive this, as it survived all previous schisms and both external and internal threats, not to mention the invasions of Rome itself of Attila the Hun, Frederick II, Emperor Charles V, Mussolini and Hitler. In somewhat minor key, Gladstone too thought that the papacy would fall with the end of the Papal States. All have come and gone, but the Church still goes on. If I were an RC wanting women priests and bishops, I would join a church which feels it can perform such an innovation. I would not waste my time on a Church which, by its very nature and historic understanding of the limits of its authority, will never do so. Benedict XVI reminded an audience recently that – contray to a widespread belief – the papacy was not an absolute monarchy. It cannot exercise authority outside of Tradition. Its role is to affirm Tradition, and, when it may become necessary, to define Tradition. It can never be set against Tradition. Whoknowsthetruth would be exercising compassion in welcoming those RCs who felt strongly about these issues into his own communion. Im sure that they would be much happier there.
Fr. Ed,
Hang tough!!! Don’t let the anti-RC crowd bait you. Allow the ‘Good Captain’ of the Barque of Peter to bring you to safe harbor.
Father Nichols is right, God will never let his Church down.
What He thinks about the Anglican Communion, however, we can only wonder.
Unlike Bishop Edwin I have not yet given up Hope that something significant and worthwhile will emerge following my predicted defeat of what the Manchester Revision Committee is likely to propose at the July Synod. Nor do I believe in a “Fuzzy Felt” Church and Gospel as the good bishop seems to imply. The Gospel I believe in and proclaim is full of Hope.
Anyway, bishop, I thought that we were meant to be on the same side? So all power to “The Power Five” as they endeavour to use their best persuasive powers to save our beloved Church from further impending rifts.
“For ++Rowan did nothing to discipline the American church over the gay issue…”
Good Lord, Father, just what powers do you imagine the Archbishop of Canterbury to have that he can “discipline” a Province of the Anglican Communion? AFAIK, the only thing he can do is not invite bishops to Lambeth, and he in fact did refuse to invite a canonically elected and consecrated bishop of the Episcopal Church.
Apostolic, I didn’t ever say that I was in favour or otherwise of the ordination of Women (to either the Diaconate, Priesthood or Episcopate), just that I had RC friends who couldn’t wait for the day that there was a new Pope.
My main point was that I struggle with Fr Ed’s recent constant barrack against ++Rowan. I appreciate that he doesn’t think ++Rowan helpful or providing of leadership at this point in time. However, he is currently an Ordained Minister in the Church of England that provides for him a roof over his head, a stipend etc., and that I don’t think his public rants at all helpful or well advised. There is enough mud-slinging going on in the church as it is.
If Fr Ed was in many other positions, there would be a much less charitable stance towards him and his public condemnation of someone at the head of his organisation. Whether or not Fr Ed chooses to go to Rome, I would appreciate some moving on. If he does wish to join Rome, as Mr Happy suggests, I suspect the authorities won’t be as forgiving.
Better to hold Abp. Rowan in our prayers than subject him to constant criticism. He is for us; many are against us.
When in the Church in Wales his will prevailed over the intransigence of the current Archbishop Barry Morgan in the appointment of a Provincial Assistant Bishop and doubtless there would have been replacement for Bishop David Thomas if Abp. Rowan were still in charge of things there.
All may not be lost and we need every friend we can get.
Petros
It seems to me, Fr Ed, that you have already left the Church of England, in spirit if not in fact. Your constant unkindness about Rowan Williams and the CofE feels distinctly ‘demob happy’. If I am right, and you have been “called home” as you put it (I thought you had always regarded the CofE as your home), then why the need for the constant stream of invective? Surely you are already sailing serenely up the Tiber on the ‘Barque of Peter’, leaving the turmoils of the CofE behind? If you have not, and you intend to stay within “this corrupt communion” (how can you now?), then you might be wiser to start building a few fences before your line manager calls you into his (soon to be her?) office for a crisp word in your shell-like.
Er, obviously I meant “building bridges”, not “fences”; we already have too many of those.
Dwight Longenecker has an excellent piece on his blog “Standing on my Head” http://gkupsidedown.blogspot.com/2010/02/archbishop-of-canterbury-church-may.html
It’s all been said before and we know all that, but its worth a read to remind us of why we are where we are.
DL’s blog on the whole is worth a regular visit – click on “Blog Home” in the lh column on the above site
(also posted on +Edwin’s blog)
I would like to endorse Nick’s comments about Fr L’s blog, although I suspect you already go there occasionally.
Whatever one’s own ecclesiastical position, one doesn’t have to like, or even respect, everything about this speech to see what RW was trying to do on the particular issue. He can’t crack a whip. Nor can the corporate ‘big five’ (some of whom are pretty dislikable whatever one’s point of view). What he can do, most earnestly, is exhort his people, all of them, to ‘see the you in me and the me in you’, or whatever that ghastly but worthy hymn says. If we all do that, we can do a deal here. I find this rather moving. If it were in my power, I would do this deal. Difficult for both sides. Both sides would have to hold their nose. But having done it, they should get on with implementing mutual love and respect. What a wonderful demonstration of Anglicanism that would be!
Of course, this sort of argument will always attract the contempt of absolutists. More fool them. There is a church for them. Funnily enough, when they get into it, they find that in practice it isn’t nearly as absolutist as they supposed. No church is. So RW’s appeal is not only virtuous, it is actually grounded in simple realism.
N de K,
Sorry I can’t agree with you. I simply can’t get past the quite egregious narcissism of said person’s self-presentation. I know it’s an inevitable danger of ‘blog-world’ but there are, or should be, limits. I should make it clear that I do not find the same phenomenon on this blog, or on Father Jones’, or on Father Hunwicke’s.