St Phillip Neri

 

It was the feast of the delightful and sympathetic St Phillip Neri today.  I think I'd rather put a pikkie of him up today  than anything to do with the temperamental successor of today's other Saint, Augustine of Canterbury - whom the Venomous Bede reminds us lost the Celtic vote by remaining Prelatically seated, rather than rising to humbly greet his separated brethren with whom he had a few disagreements (like the dating of Easter, how to do your tonsure and how to baptise babies etc).  I can fully understand ++ RW getting ratty under pressure and biffing committees into shape, but it sounds rather nasty, especially when the surviving kin of the author of the leaked memo suggest that the Archiepiscopal nastiness hastened the demise of the cancer afflicted Dean of Southwark.  Not a good news day for Lambeth Palace - so we pray that some of Fra Filippo's gentleness and joy will wing it's way to ABC's lodgings.

An e-mail to Rowan Williams

Dear Archbishop

I am contacting you to express my deep dismay and disappointment with regard to your public position on the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009 currently under consideration in the Ugandan Parliament and the election of the Suffragan Bishop of Los Angeles.

The former, one of the most vile and inhumane pieces of legislation to see the light of day since the happy demise of Adolf Hitler, has been in the public domain for several weeks if not months, was initially offered very slightly qualified support by the Anglican Church in Uganda and has been the subject only of an indirect comment by your office through the medium of Ruth Gledhill's column in the Times. The latter, an action which threatens no lives with judicial termination, was condemned with 12 hours by a Press release from Lambeth Palace. A combination of rectitude and alacrity that leaves me stunned and angry.

This, Your Grace, to me smacks either of the most remarkably twisted logic in establishing moral priorities or of ecclesiastical politics at their most craven and venal. Neither reflects well on either your person or your office. I wish to urge you to make some public statement condemning unequivocally the Ugandan legislation and pointing out to the Ugandan Church that their collusion with this murderous act is a far more serious threat to the Unity of the Communion than the offer of a mitre to a middle aged women in California, no matter who she lives with.

Prior to leaving parish ministry, I had close links with a parish in Uganda and value that relationship of Communion highly. However, no ecclesiatical unity is worth the sacrifice of thousands to a life lived under the shadow of terror and even death. I cannot in all conscience see how anyone would believe differently.

Archbishop, I am currently a serving member of the General Synod of the Scotish Episcopal Church. These events have changed my mind with regard to the proposed Anglican Covenant. No unity is worth the terrible cost that silent collusion with Uganda would require. You may take it that I will vote against the Covenant as a direct result of your action and inaction.

Yours is an uneviable and indeed impossible task Your Grace, so whilst I must express my views with regard to your position, I also assure you of my continuing prayers for God's guidance and wisdom. We are all human and all need that daily.

Yours sincerely,

John Penman
(Priest of the Diocese of Edinburgh)

Here's what Rowan Should have said

A friend has suggested that this is what the ABC ought to be asked to say to Uganda, rather than the suggested draft from the irate of LA diocese on Facebook:

"Unless the Metropolitan Archbishop and House of Bishops (this may, of course, be the wrong form of address) of the Church of Uganda openly repudiate the proposed bill, in terms both of its condemnation of homosexuality and the extreme and un-Christian penalties sought, as well as in its interference with the obligations to their congregation of ordained and lay ministers, I will immediately call a special meeting of the Lambeth Conference to suspend the Church of Uganda, and its affiliated bishops and parishes from membership of the Anglican Communion."

Quite right! Just goes to prove that, in his case, Military Intelligence is not an oxymoron!

Oh, come ON Rowan!

http://timescolumns.typepad.com/gledhill/

Here we have the normally excellent Ruth Gledhill (and a work experience lassie on placement at the Times) acting as an apologist for Rowan "I think Cosmo Gordon Lang's way of handling the Nazi's was quite sensible" Williams. Mercifully, there is a decent bit of sanity in a comment from a Bishop Alan Wilson. Uganda has been independent since 1962: us telling them the Bahati bill is immoral, inhumane, fascist and vile is not colonialism (neo or otherwise). The claim that we ought not to intervene critically in human rights issues in sub-Saharan Africa is an arrogant nonsense. Is fascist and genocidal behaviour OK if you are black and live in Africa, but only wrong if you are, say, Serbian? No, rubbish of the 1st order. It is high time the furry holy one got off the fence and laid into the Ugandan Church. Michael Ramsey hammered the Rhodesians for UDI and it was below the Sahara. Oh, hang on - Ian Smith was a pale ex-Spitfire pilot, not a vicious demagogue who has a lot of melatonin in his skin! Come on Rowan, you're supposed to be left wing!