The next ABC (come quickly)

Perhaps the next Pope o' Rome will have more trouble than the next ABC repairing his church from the actions of his predecessor, but it'll be a near thing. If, as his recent hagiography implies, Rowan was groomed for the See of Canterbury almost from grammar school, then the groomers must be mightily disappointed or even shamed. If his earlier actions and writings were taken as indications of what he was to do when he reached his fulfillment, then the watchers and readers were sadly disillusioned. If he was thought to be the one to repair the damage done by Peggy Thatcher's dithering revenge on the C of E for its weak support (at best) of Tory bellicosity and mammonolatry, the thinkers got it wrong.

Everything known suggest that Rowan was picked to do a number of fairly specific jobs to drag the C of E into at least the 1990s, if not the 21st century. These tasks included

Getting the chancel prancing Papist and the noisome and noisy Roundheads back into the Elizabethan settlement "Freedom of conscience within uniformity of worship*."

Getting women first and, almost immediately, unclosetted sexual minorities** into full participation in the church: as priests and bishops without restrictions and in all other roles as well.

Restoring the C of E's reputation as a leader in support of human right and the MDG.

Encouraging the North American Anglican communion churches to proceed on their trajectory of inclusion but to do so in a way that would help the C of E to catch up and stimulate some other churches to at least get started on this road.

On these tasks, at least, his score is a perfect zero.

The Papists are either looking to flee cross the Tiber or to build a church within the church, free from some off the usual rules (like subservience to your bishop). The Roundheads want to take over the church and force their uniformity on conscience as well as worship and form an alliance with the Papists (that is some progress, I suppose) to thwart the rest of the reform program. The great middle is largely ignored -- except briefly in General Synod, when it tries to enact the program as much as it can (to be subverted at the next step, with the ABC's covert support).

This last is, of course, about the matter, most openly, of women bishops, where the General synod passed -- over the ABC's pleas to the contrary -- a motion to make women bishops with full rights and duties, objectors to be handled more informally rather than by statute. In perfecting the legislation called for, the committee changed that to giving statutory restrictions on women bishops and statutory extraordinary rights to those who objected. General Synod may well reject this change, but that is, obviously, no guarantee that it will not end up being the final legislation. And the whole process has now been slowed down by at least another year.

At Lambeth, the Communion put on a big display for MDG, led by the C of E and Rowan his own self. Very little of this seems to have been cashed out by C of E, though other provinces, including some much poorer ones, have done quite a bit. Organizations around the C of E, but not part of it in any official way, have also done quite a bit.

The case for human rights is even more bleak. Groups around the church have done what they could; the church -- and Rowan in particular -- has mouthed general platitudes and refused to speak out about particular situations, even when -- maybe even especially when -- they involved churches in the Communion and the actions of their heads. This is back to the matter of sexual minorities, of course, since the most egregious of these non-pronouncements has been about the new, stricter --even lethal -- laws against homosexuality introduced in several African countries with the loud support of the heads of their Anglican churches. Of course, this path was already apparent in the home church with the debishoping of Jeffrey John early in Rowan's tenure and a variety of (generally unsuccessful) moves to prevent the blessing secular same-sex unions or even full wedding style ceremonies. And, in addition, the C of E repeatedly appealed for exemptions from non-discrimination laws for even positions most remote from religious purpose, matching or even beating the RCs. Theological musing and practices as a bishop of lesser standing would not bind the embodiment of the Anglican Communion.

And, since the C of E was not moving forward (or was even going backward a bit) and nothing was happening to jump-start the African churches, the appeal to North American to not get too far ahead had little force. The appeal was made, at least, but it was framed less in terms of not getting too far ahead and more in terms of not doing something totally wrong (maybe sinful, certainly discomforting to some and possibly a liability in some mission fields). Further, the framework of the appeal quickly came to be the framework for a structure new to the Communion (which isn't that old to begin with) which would change the appeal into a command -- never a good approach to the USA and Canada and something foreign to (indeed, against a foundational document of) Anglicanism.

In all of these failures, Rowan has had the opportunity to do the right thing, the thing he was trained up to do and promised to do, by word and deed, in his earlier career (though, to be fair, he did show signs of the power center idea of the ABC from early on). He took none of these opportunities and -- perhaps worse -- undercut those who tried to make what he did look like doing the right thing (++Katherine's appeal for B033 at GC2006 comes to mind).

May the next ABC come soon, while there is still a C of E or an Anglican Communion to serve.

*"uniformity of worship" is a sort of Anglican joke, since, at least in the older churches of the Communion, the official BCP and Hymnal are supplemented by a variety of more or less official improvements, trial usages, local usages, borrowed BCPs from elsewhere (and from elsewhen as well) so that quite possibly no two Anglican services are ever the same. And this doesn't even consider the pomp and circumstance bits that range from Byzantine elaboration to po' chapel minimalism (three hours to 25 minutes, say).

** Well, except for necrophiliacs, bestialists, pederasts and ephebophiles, the promiscuous, sadists, masochists, fetishists and so on. It basically means LGBT and even then probably with some exceptions, varying from place to place. In fairness, when this commitment is working, all are welcome and treated much the same outside considerations for ordination or certain occupations, like Sunday School teachers and choir directors.