A Meddlesome Priest
“Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?” are words which Henry II is alleged to have used in reference to Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. They may well be words that have sprung to the mind of the present Archbishop of Canterbury as he contemplates the role that Lord Carey of Clifton, his predecessor as Archbishop, has been orchestrating for himself in the Anglican Communion. Everyone is aware of the precarious position that Archbishop Rowan Williams is in as he tries to hold the Anglican Church together in it's struggle to resolve enormous internal tensions. His leadership has been consistently undermined by Lord Carey, who in his retirement has been offering comfort and support to dissatisfied evangelical Anglicans. Many conservative American Anglicans, openly disparaging the efforts of Rowan Williams, fete Carey’s visits as if he were still the Archbishop.
Lord Carey’s leadership as Archbishop helped create the turmoil that has engulfed the Communion. It was for example, his personal intervention during the last Lambeth conference that helped engineer the resolution on human sexuality that has split the Church. His appointment to Canterbury from being Bishop of Bath and Wells was unanticipated, and rumour at the time had it that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, when handed the traditional list of two names, was so ideologically opposed to the first and obvious name, allegedly that of the then Archbishop of York, that she plumped for Carey. The new Primate, a novice to the international politics of the Anglican Communion, set about promoting his evangelical agenda which included his over-hyped announcement of a Decade of Evangelism. Far from revitalising the Church of England’s fortunes, this mammoth effort saw membership of the Church fall below 1 million for the first time. It also spawned an air of conspiracy amongst the bureaucrats of Church House who would publicly proclaim the decade to be a success despite their private knowledge that it was a singular failure.
When the time came for Archbishop Carey to retire, he did this less than gracefully with the press highlighting his attempts to manipulate the situation to ensure that his successor was someone of whom he approved and who would build upon his evangelical legacy. The one person he didn’t want to succeed him appears to have been Rowan Williams, a hero of the liberal wing of the Church. Again the press suggested that there was a feud between the two men, dating from Carey’s blocking of a proposal that Williams, at the time Bishop of a Welsh Diocese, should be translated to the English diocese of Southwark.
In his retirement, Carey has consistently proclaimed his ministry to be that of a reconciler. His actions say otherwise. Some will excuse those actions as being naive. But it is difficult to believe that a person who has held such an important and demanding post as Archbishop for such a period of time, did not developed a certain sophistication when it comes to Church politics. The consequences of his behaviour will not have gone unconsidered. So we must assume his actions to have been deliberate. Amongst the many examples of his meddling, several stand out.
Firstly there was his widely reported lecture at a College in Rome in 2004. Speaking it is to be noted on the eve of a seminar of Christian and Muslim scholars in New York led by Rowan Williams, he launched what the Telegraph called “a trenchant attack on Islamic culture saying it was authoritarian, inflexible and under-achieving”. He went on to criticise not only suicide bombers, but the absence of democracy in Islamic countries, and also suggested that Muslim faith and culture had contributed little of major significance to world culture for centuries. The timing of his lecture speaks for itself, and the thought that this intervention was intended to be a form of reconciliation defeats the imagination.
A year later The Telegraph openly voiced criticism of Lord Carey’s behaviour. An article on May 30th begins: “Lord Carey of Clifton seems unaware of the convention that former archbishops of Canterbury do not implicitly criticise their successors or interfere in ecclesiastical affairs. Either that, or he has decided to ignore it”. The particular reference is to a sermon Lord Carey preached in London in which he argued that the Church of England should appoint bishops who have worked ‘at the coalface’ (presumably like he himself had done in Durham), rather than those who have spent most of their lives as academics (which is in fact the case for Rowan Williams). The article goes on to criticise Carey for his perception of himself as “the Church’s Henry Kissenger, attending the Davos World Economic Forum and advising multinational corporations on ethical business practice”. It concludes by noting that in his retirement David Hope, Archbishop of York, has returned to the role of a full-time parish priest, and recommends that Lord Carey if he feels so strongly about ‘the coalface’ should similarly return to ‘digging’ rather than ‘stirring’.
A final example is but one of the many instances in which Carey has on his US tours aligned himself with self-styled ‘Orthodox’ Anglicanism as opposed to what they refer to as ‘Revisionist’ Anglicans. In March 2006 he wrote a letter endorsing a questionnaire seeking to revisit the issues of the election of a gay bishop and the advocacy of same-sex unions sent out by an Orthodox group to the US House of Bishops. Virtue Online, which purports to be the voice of Anglican Orthodoxy, reported that Carey “commended this initiative of concerned lay Episcopalians who wish their church to remain faithful to Orthodox Christianity”. Carey is entitled to his views, but seems oblivious to the boundaries he is traversing, and to the fact that his American followers increasingly regard him as an alternative centre of unity for the Anglican Communion.
This week’s religious news in the UK press has focussed upon a letter initiated by a friend of mine, the Revd David Wood who is a priest in the Australian diocese of Perth and to which clergy around the world, myself included, have become signatories. It is an open letter to Lord Carey asking him to observe the conventions of being a retired Archbishop and to stop interfering in the affairs of the Anglican Communion. Responding in a radio interview Lord Carey claimed that his actions have been misunderstood and that the signatories of the letter should have first approached him to establish the facts of the matter. But the facts are that he has clearly and deliberately set out his stall in opposition to Rowan Williams and expresses no apology for doing so. In the interview he urged the signatories of the open letter to reflect and repent, exactly what the open letter is urging him to do. Meanwhile he continues to serve unapologetically as an advocate for those determined to create division within the Church, all the while proclaiming himself to be engaging in a ministry of reconciliation.
Lord Carey’s leadership as Archbishop helped create the turmoil that has engulfed the Communion. It was for example, his personal intervention during the last Lambeth conference that helped engineer the resolution on human sexuality that has split the Church. His appointment to Canterbury from being Bishop of Bath and Wells was unanticipated, and rumour at the time had it that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, when handed the traditional list of two names, was so ideologically opposed to the first and obvious name, allegedly that of the then Archbishop of York, that she plumped for Carey. The new Primate, a novice to the international politics of the Anglican Communion, set about promoting his evangelical agenda which included his over-hyped announcement of a Decade of Evangelism. Far from revitalising the Church of England’s fortunes, this mammoth effort saw membership of the Church fall below 1 million for the first time. It also spawned an air of conspiracy amongst the bureaucrats of Church House who would publicly proclaim the decade to be a success despite their private knowledge that it was a singular failure.
When the time came for Archbishop Carey to retire, he did this less than gracefully with the press highlighting his attempts to manipulate the situation to ensure that his successor was someone of whom he approved and who would build upon his evangelical legacy. The one person he didn’t want to succeed him appears to have been Rowan Williams, a hero of the liberal wing of the Church. Again the press suggested that there was a feud between the two men, dating from Carey’s blocking of a proposal that Williams, at the time Bishop of a Welsh Diocese, should be translated to the English diocese of Southwark.
In his retirement, Carey has consistently proclaimed his ministry to be that of a reconciler. His actions say otherwise. Some will excuse those actions as being naive. But it is difficult to believe that a person who has held such an important and demanding post as Archbishop for such a period of time, did not developed a certain sophistication when it comes to Church politics. The consequences of his behaviour will not have gone unconsidered. So we must assume his actions to have been deliberate. Amongst the many examples of his meddling, several stand out.
Firstly there was his widely reported lecture at a College in Rome in 2004. Speaking it is to be noted on the eve of a seminar of Christian and Muslim scholars in New York led by Rowan Williams, he launched what the Telegraph called “a trenchant attack on Islamic culture saying it was authoritarian, inflexible and under-achieving”. He went on to criticise not only suicide bombers, but the absence of democracy in Islamic countries, and also suggested that Muslim faith and culture had contributed little of major significance to world culture for centuries. The timing of his lecture speaks for itself, and the thought that this intervention was intended to be a form of reconciliation defeats the imagination.
A year later The Telegraph openly voiced criticism of Lord Carey’s behaviour. An article on May 30th begins: “Lord Carey of Clifton seems unaware of the convention that former archbishops of Canterbury do not implicitly criticise their successors or interfere in ecclesiastical affairs. Either that, or he has decided to ignore it”. The particular reference is to a sermon Lord Carey preached in London in which he argued that the Church of England should appoint bishops who have worked ‘at the coalface’ (presumably like he himself had done in Durham), rather than those who have spent most of their lives as academics (which is in fact the case for Rowan Williams). The article goes on to criticise Carey for his perception of himself as “the Church’s Henry Kissenger, attending the Davos World Economic Forum and advising multinational corporations on ethical business practice”. It concludes by noting that in his retirement David Hope, Archbishop of York, has returned to the role of a full-time parish priest, and recommends that Lord Carey if he feels so strongly about ‘the coalface’ should similarly return to ‘digging’ rather than ‘stirring’.
A final example is but one of the many instances in which Carey has on his US tours aligned himself with self-styled ‘Orthodox’ Anglicanism as opposed to what they refer to as ‘Revisionist’ Anglicans. In March 2006 he wrote a letter endorsing a questionnaire seeking to revisit the issues of the election of a gay bishop and the advocacy of same-sex unions sent out by an Orthodox group to the US House of Bishops. Virtue Online, which purports to be the voice of Anglican Orthodoxy, reported that Carey “commended this initiative of concerned lay Episcopalians who wish their church to remain faithful to Orthodox Christianity”. Carey is entitled to his views, but seems oblivious to the boundaries he is traversing, and to the fact that his American followers increasingly regard him as an alternative centre of unity for the Anglican Communion.
This week’s religious news in the UK press has focussed upon a letter initiated by a friend of mine, the Revd David Wood who is a priest in the Australian diocese of Perth and to which clergy around the world, myself included, have become signatories. It is an open letter to Lord Carey asking him to observe the conventions of being a retired Archbishop and to stop interfering in the affairs of the Anglican Communion. Responding in a radio interview Lord Carey claimed that his actions have been misunderstood and that the signatories of the letter should have first approached him to establish the facts of the matter. But the facts are that he has clearly and deliberately set out his stall in opposition to Rowan Williams and expresses no apology for doing so. In the interview he urged the signatories of the open letter to reflect and repent, exactly what the open letter is urging him to do. Meanwhile he continues to serve unapologetically as an advocate for those determined to create division within the Church, all the while proclaiming himself to be engaging in a ministry of reconciliation.
posted by MichaelElliott @ 1:45 AM
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