Updated. Reuters and the New York Times read the speech that the Archbishop of Canterbury gave at the Vatican this week as both a defense of the Anglican Communion and a mild rebuke of the Roman Catholic approach to ecumenism. The Times of London wants him to be tougher. Bishop Alan Wilson says the speech signals another kind of unity.
The Chicago Consultation today asked the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury; the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church; Dr. Bonnie Anderson, President of the House of Deputies; and the Most Rev. Henry Luke Orombi, Primate of the Anglican Church of Uganda, to speak out against draconian anti-gay legislation introduced in the Ugandan Parliament last month.
. . . within our Anglican family we need to go on telling a few stories about those who have shown us that it is possible to lead lives of Catholic holiness even in the Communion of the See of Canterbury . . .
The Porvoo churches may be in full communion, but they are suffering something approaching a full communications breakdown. Or so it would seem.
Rowan Williams has separated out ecclesiastical rights from human rights, and has become complicit in the actions of African prelates and civil authorities against gay people; he has turned Church life into a form of isolated ecclesiastical bureaucracy; he has made a joke of critical theology and Biblical study when it comes to Church authority, and now for all this overturning of Anglican sensibilities for the greater goal he has been humiliated by Rome.
The Archbishop of Canterbury needs to own some responsibility for the situation regarding homophobia in the Church being far worse than during his predecessor’s time. The Archbishop treats issues of sexuality only as ecclesiastical problems and solutions, denying theological insight and fresh thinking regarding this issue as given to other matters.
The Episcopal Church’s Executive Council said October 8 that the majority of the General Convention deputations and individual deputies that expressed an opinion do not support the disciplinary process outlined in the latest draft of a proposed Anglican covenant.
An English writer maintains working respect for Rowan Cantuar, but is apt to disagree with him most vigorously. She is as likely to call him down as she is to uphold him. In other words, to use a purely English metaphor, her Archbishop is not an unquestionable royal on a pleasure-cruise; he is the Prime Minister at a raucous question-session of Parliament — a man of religious preferment and, therefore, accountability.
Today, even with the memory of the crisis fresh in their minds, creditors are granting big institutions more favorable treatment because they know the government is backing them, FDIC officials said. Large banks with more than $100 billion in assets are borrowing at interest rates 0.34 percentage points lower than the rest of the industry. Back in 2007, that advantage was only 0.08 percentage points, according to the FDIC.
Your Café keepers have been remiss in keeping our readers informed of the news buzzing out of Lambeth Palace earlier this month.