THE ARCHBISHOP of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, reacted strongly to media questions in Dublin yesterday which queried the role of the Anglican primate of Uganda, Most Rev Henry Luke Orombi, in fomenting a climate in which gay activist David Kato was murdered there last Wednesday.
Bishop Orombi was one of seven Anglican Church leaders who boycotted the Anglican Primates Meeting in Dublin which concluded yesterday, because Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the US Episcopal Church, was attending it.
The absent primates do not approve of the US church’s ordination of actively gay bishops or its same-sex blessings.
Defending Bishop Orombi, Archbishop Williams, head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, emphasised that, as with other relevant Anglican primates, Bishop Orombi’s position concerned “exclusion from ministry on grounds of behaviour, not orientation”.
He continued that Mr Kato had been “named in this rotten, disgraceful Ugandan publication” – the Rolling Stone newspaper in Kampala – in which “effectively, his murder had been called for.”
It illustrated, he said, that “words have results . . . certainly a lesson all need to learn”.
Does Archbishop Williams really not get the connection? When will he learn the lesson that "words have results"?
UPDATE: Below is a snippet from the audio from the press conference following the Primates' Meeting in Dublin, which Lapin references in his comment:
"Does that not sound, if you pardon the language sir, Jesuitical?" - Irish journalist responding to Rowan Williams' defence of Henry Orombi at yesterday's press conference.
I don't agree with the headline at Audioboo, which reads: "Did you hear the one about the gay activist who was murdered because an Archbishop didn’t go to a meeting in Dublin?" Kato was not murdered because the archbishop didn't attend the Primates' Meeting.
What a load!! Obviously the "Communion" is more important to Rowan than anything else. If he doesn't grow a pair, Rowan will be the irrelevant primate.
ReplyDeleteI think it's waaaaaaaay too late for that, Susan.
ReplyDeleteDisappointing, but not the least bit surprising....
As Susan says, What a load!, and as Doxy says, waaaaaaaay too late.
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ReplyDeleteLapin, Rowan's defense of Orombi is, indeed, Jesuitical, and I applaud the journalist who pointed that out. I wonder if Rowan saw the video of Kato's funeral. Does he care at all that Bp. Christopher was excommunicated?
ReplyDeleteI believe Rowan should resign - and the sooner, the better. His twisted thinking and speaking does great harm. He has no credibility left with decent people. I'd thought that Kato's death might open his eyes, but obviously it did not.
Williams' slightly petulant tone in the audio clip; the speedy and frankly disingenuous (or should the word be Jesuitical?) manner in which he springs to Orombi's defense, and his decidedly sniffy reference to "those who have ordained active homosexual persons", tells me rather more than I wanted to know about the Archbishop.
ReplyDeleteRowan seems quite impatient that everyone doesn't see things his way and not a little defensive in the face of the questions from the press.
ReplyDeleteAs I read this again, I noticed you're headline. I think it's incomplete. . .
ReplyDeleteABC Steps Backward into a Pile of Manure
I never thought to see the ABC behave like the Pope, defending the Old Boys at the expense of any sort of righteousness or compassion.
ReplyDeleteI am convinced this man Williams never had a true vocation and simply played the bureaucracy too well.
I have to withdraw from all this, or it will kill me - find my own direction. The church can no longer offer direction if it places creatures like that in charge.
susan, the headline should reat that the ABC is mired in manure.
ReplyDeleteMark, Rowan should resign. Unfortunately, my saying it won't make it happen.