Tag: Archbishop of Canterbury

Why not end all the waffling? Take some bold steps. Request additional letters of resignation from the members of the Compass Rose Society and the Friends of Canterbury Cathedral, to be effective at least until the next Lambeth Conference.

The issues at stake have become so trivial—We are not debating right and wrong, we are debating whether there should be trifling penalties for giving offense to other members of the Communion.—that to engage them at all compromises our moral standing and diminishes our ability to speak credibly on issues of real importance.

Without further comment or elaboration, the Archbishop of Canterbury yesterday “welcomed” the letter written by South Africa’s bishops.

Representatives of those Provinces, national or regional churches whose decision-making bodies have gone against the agreed moratoria a) will be asked to step down from formal ecumenical dialogues such as those with Orthodox Churches or the Roman Catholic Church, and b) will no longer have any decision-making powers in the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order that handles questions of church doctrine and authority.

The judgment of the editorialist is, if anything, rather mild. As Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams has not only been complicit in the persecution of gay and lesbian Africans, he has actively abetted the cause of the Anglican Communion’s most virulently bigoted prelates, and twisted the Communion’s moral calculus beyond recognition.

Richard Dawkins interviews the Archbishop of Canterbury.

In all your minds there will be questions around the election and consecration of Mary Glasspool in Los Angeles. All of us share the concern that in this decision and action the Episcopal Church has deepened the divide between itself and the rest of the Anglican family. And as I speak to you now, I am in discussion with a number of people around the world about what consequences might follow from that decision, and how we express the sense that most Anglicans will want to express, that this decision cannot speak for our common mind.

“The Christianity both of them were shaped by is, on the whole, a very, very Western thing,” said Williams.