Here's another item (belatedly seen by me) that somehow Vatican Radio, with all its interviews with the Archbishop of Canterbury last week, failed to report separately...
Archbishop of Canterbury to take part
in October Synod on 'new evangelization'
By Cindy Wooden
Archbishop Williams and the Holy Father walking up to the church of San Gregorio in Celio last Saturday.
ROME, March 14 - Pope Benedict XVI has invited the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, to address the world Synod of Bishops on the new evangelisation in October.
The news emerged after the two leaders met and prayed together at the Church of St Gregory on the Caelian Hill in Rome, from which Pope Gregory the Great sent St Augustine of Canterbury and his fellow monks to evangelise England in 597.
Dr Williams told Vatican Radio: “I’m being invited to give some theological reflections on the nature of mission, the nature of evangelisation, and I’m extremely honoured to be invited to do this.
“I hope that it’s a sign that we can work together on evangelisation in Europe,” the archbishop said. “It’s disastrous if any one church tries to go it alone here and tries to assume that it and it alone has the key”, because reviving the Christian faith in Europe requires as many and “as deep resources as we can find”.
AND HOW ABOUT THIS 'SHOCKER' IN THIS MORNING'S NEWS????
Archbishop of Canterbury
to step down at year's end
By JOHN F. BURNS and ALAN COWELL
March 16, 2012
LONDON — After a decade of struggling inconclusively to keep the worldwide Anglican Communion from breaking apart over such intractable issues as female clergy, gay bishops and same-sex marriage, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, announced on Friday that he would step down at the end of year to take up a high position Cambridge University, switching from a turbulent era in the church to academia.
The resignation of Archbishop Williams, 61, had been widely predicted — although its timing surprised some of his followers — and experts have been busy for months speculating over Archbishop Williams’s likely successor as the senior bishop of the Church of England and as the symbolic head of the Anglican Communion, the international network of Anglican and Episcopalian churches that estimates that it represents nearly 80 million people across the globe.
Archbishop Williams is to become the master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, in January.
Two possible successors whose names have won favor with supporters in the Church of England, traditionally the mother church of the union, have been John Sentamu, 62, the archbishop of York, who is the Church of England’s most senior bishop after Archbishop Williams, and Richard Chartres, 64, the bishop of London.
The early favorite, according to many experts, is Archbishop Sentamu, a down-to-earth, plain-speaking figure who ran afoul of the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin while practicing law in Uganda in the 1970s, and who has won wide popularity among Anglicans in Britain, especially with those who favor a more conservative approach to the social issues besetting the church.
But Bishop Chartres has strong backers, too, among them Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, who has chosen him to officiate on many church occasions involving the royal family, including delivering the sermon at last summer’s marriage of Prince William to Kate Middleton.
Archbishop Sentamu did not indicate in a statement whether he expected to become what is called the Primate of all England in succession to Archbishop Williams.
“Despite his courageous, tireless and bold endeavor, he has been much maligned by people who should have known better. For my part, he has been God’s apostle for our time,” Archbishop Sentamu said of Archbishop Williams.
Church procedures for the appointment of a new archbishop of Canterbury require a body of clerics and laymen, headed by a nominee of the British prime minister but including members of the Anglican Communion from outside Britain, to put two names forward to the prime minister, currently David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative party. His role is to make a final recommendation on the appointee to Queen Elizabeth II, the titular head of the Church of England.
“It has been an immense privilege to serve as Archbishop of Canterbury over the past decade, and moving on has not been an easy decision,” Archbishop Williams said in a statement on Friday. He was appointed as the 104th archbishop of Canterbury in 2002.
He will be leaving a church struggling with dwindling congregations and torn by corrosive debates over issues including homosexuality and the role of women in the church. Those issues have contributed to new strains with the Roman Catholic Church, which has offered to accept Anglican clerics who disagree with what is seen as a liberal trend among some Anglicans.
Anglicanism, dating to King Henry VIII’s break with papal power in the early 16th century, is Britain’s so-called established religion, but in recent decades society has become far more diverse in faith.
In an interview with the Press Association news agency on Friday, Archbishop Williams said his job was one “of immense demands and I would hope that my successor has the constitution of an ox and the skin of a rhinoceros, really.”
“But he will, I think, have to look with positive, hopeful eyes on a Church which, for all its problems, is still for so many people, a place to which they resort in times of need and crisis, a place to which they look for inspiration. I think the Church of England is a great treasure. I wish my successor well in the stewardship of it,” he said.
In his decade in office, Archbishop Williams has never seemed a confrontational figure, seeking consensus on the most contentious issues coursing through the church at a time when the institution has also been challenged by some secular Britons seeking the exclusion of faith from public life, akin to the concept of laïcité in France.
ndeed, a recent survey conducted by a secular group found that almost a half of those identifying themselves as Christians had attended no church services over the past year other than those for weddings, funerals and baptisms. Many were not familiar with the Bible, the survey found, and the proportion of Britons identifying themselves as Christians had slipped from around three-quarters to just over a half.
One of the most recent controversies was over the occupation of the plaza outside St. Paul’s Cathedral in London as part of anticapitalist protests.
Within days of setting up a tented camp, virtually on the cathedral steps, the occupiers drew adversaries from among many of the most powerful people in Britain, including Mr. Cameron and the mayor of London, Boris Johnson — who supported legal moves for the protesters’ eviction — and bankers and financiers who saw the camp as a threat to London’s appeal as a financial center.
A rancorous debate within the Church of England had hard-liners retreating in the face of a powerful group of liberal theologians led by Dr. Williams, who argued for an acceptance of the protesters and their cause. The liberals saw the protest as an opportunity to steer the church toward a renewed embrace of Gospel teachings on social justice.
But the most contentious issues have related to openly gay priests and the role of women.
Archbishop Williams, a bearded, Welsh-born theologian with liberal views on gay and lesbian issues, was enthroned in 2003 just as strains among Anglicans over homosexuality were coming to a boil over the election of an openly gay Episcopal bishop, V. Gene Robinson, in New Hampshire.
In 2008, Archbishop Williams sought a stratagem for finding both short- and long-term solutions to the dispute over homosexuality in the church, reflected in starkly opposed views of traditionalists, primarily in Africa and Asia, who oppose any concessions on homosexuality, and of more liberal elements, especially in the United States and Canada, who favor the ordination of openly gay and lesbian clergy members and church blessings of same-sex unions.
But in 2010, the Church of England moved a step closer to a schism between traditionalists and reformers when its General Synod, or parliament, rejected a bid by Archbishop Williams to strike a compromise over the ordination of women as bishops aimed at preserving the increasingly fragile unity of the Anglican Communion.
The rejection of proposals aimed at accommodating those who oppose women as bishops appeared to strike a serious blow to the authority of Archbishop Williams, who had sponsored proposals providing for a “complementary” male bishop with independent powers, working alongside a female bishop, to minister to traditionalists unwilling to accept a woman as the head of their diocese.
The General Synod is expected to give final approval in July to the introduction of female bishops, a move that is likely to inspire more defections among traditionalists.
“At the end of this year, I will have been 10 years in post as archbishop and just over 20 years as a bishop — that is part of it, feeling that after 10 years it is proper to pray and reflect and review your options,” Archbishop. Williams said, according to The Press Association.
“Crisis management is never a favorite activity, I have to admit, but it is not as if that has overshadowed everything. It has certainly been a major nuisance,” he said. “I can’t say that it is a great sense of ‘free at last.’ ”
Indeed, a recent survey conducted by a secular group found that almost a half of those identifying themselves as Christians had attended no church services over the past year other than those for weddings, funerals and baptisms. Many were not familiar with the Bible, the survey found, and the proportion of Britons identifying themselves as Christians had slipped from around three-quarters to just over a half.
One of the most recent controversies was over the occupation of the plaza outside St. Paul’s Cathedral in London as part of anticapitalist protests.
Within days of setting up a tented camp, virtually on the cathedral steps, the occupiers drew adversaries from among many of the most powerful people in Britain, including Mr. Cameron and the mayor of London, Boris Johnson — who supported legal moves for the protesters’ eviction — and bankers and financiers who saw the camp as a threat to London’s appeal as a financial center.
A rancorous debate within the Church of England had hard-liners retreating in the face of a powerful group of liberal theologians led by Dr. Williams, who argued for an acceptance of the protesters and their cause. The liberals saw the protest as an opportunity to steer the church toward a renewed embrace of Gospel teachings on social justice.
But the most contentious issues have related to openly gay priests and the role of women.
Archbishop Williams, a bearded, Welsh-born theologian with liberal views on gay and lesbian issues, was enthroned in 2003 just as strains among Anglicans over homosexuality were coming to a boil over the election of an openly gay Episcopal bishop, V. Gene Robinson, in New Hampshire.
In 2008, Archbishop Williams sought a stratagem for finding both short- and long-term solutions to the dispute over homosexuality in the church, reflected in starkly opposed views of traditionalists, primarily in Africa and Asia, who oppose any concessions on homosexuality, and of more liberal elements, especially in the United States and Canada, who favor the ordination of openly gay and lesbian clergy members and church blessings of same-sex unions.
But in 2010, the Church of England moved a step closer to a schism between traditionalists and reformers when its General Synod, or parliament, rejected a bid by Archbishop Williams to strike a compromise over the ordination of women as bishops aimed at preserving the increasingly fragile unity of the Anglican Communion.
The rejection of proposals aimed at accommodating those who oppose women as bishops appeared to strike a serious blow to the authority of Archbishop Williams, who had sponsored proposals providing for a “complementary” male bishop with independent powers, working alongside a female bishop, to minister to traditionalists unwilling to accept a woman as the head of their diocese.
The General Synod is expected to give final approval in July to the introduction of female bishops, a move that is likely to inspire more defections among traditionalists.
“At the end of this year, I will have been 10 years in post as archbishop and just over 20 years as a bishop — that is part of it, feeling that after 10 years it is proper to pray and reflect and review your options,” Archbishop. Williams said, according to The Press Association.
“Crisis management is never a favorite activity, I have to admit, but it is not as if that has overshadowed everything. It has certainly been a major nuisance,” he said. “I can’t say that it is a great sense of ‘free at last.’ ”
Two primates met last weekend in Rome. One, nearing his 85th birthday, has been increasingly the target of wild media speculation in Italy that he may resign as Pope, something that has not happened in centuries - speculation prompted mostly, it seems, because no Pope has lived to be 85 since Leo XIII more than a century ago (who lived to age 93). The other, 61, has also been the object of similar speculation in recent months because of unresolved questions within the Anglican Communion. No doubt he would have told the Pope about his impending announcement at their meeting last Saturday, but it is Archbishop Williams, 24 years younger, who is now stepping down - in what seems to be an acknowledgment that he cannot be the man who will lead the Anglicans out of their present quandary.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 16/03/2012 19:30]