He should play to his strength and spend his time at the grassroots with the common
Posted in General on 20. Jul, 2010
He should play to his strength and spend his time at the grassroots with the common people. The two men are rather differently regarded by churchmen and women abroad. Dr Runcie’s reputation was coloured by his battles with Margaret Thatcher’s government in the Eighties. Especially after Lord Runcie’s oblique attack on the style of his successor last week, which he described as “preachy” in style and “management church” in substance. Carey’s Church of England plc has diminished still further the mystique and awe that the Roman papacy, for all its failings, is still able to command.But the distinctions between Dr Runcie and Dr Carey go deeper. For it cannot rely on the dignity of the office if there is a duff man at the top. The success or failure of the enterprise depends entirely on the skills of that single individual.Hence the eyebrows that were being arched in the direction of Los Angeles, where Dr Carey has been visiting, this week.
There is much talk about Canterbury as primus inter pares with analogies concerning the Queen and the Commonwealth.He is thus, depending on what kind of Anglican you are, the next best thing to an Anglican pope or a far better thing – for there is no risk of a pontifical dictatorship imposing a homogeneous orthodoxy insensitive to the qualities of the local culture.But the Anglican style of leadership, requiring nuance and artful persuasion is risky. Their archbishop is expected to maintain unity merely through “bonds of affection” and the sense that all Anglicans can trace their roots back to the first archbishop of Canterbury, Augustine, in 597. Had he been asking the question of Canterbury he might have thought in terms of mere platoons.”I am not an Anglican pope,” Robert Runcie was fond of saying privately to those whom he felt had failed to understand the subtle nature his relationship to Anglicans around the world For Anglicans authority is moral rather than juridical. He is able to manipulate some of the General Synod’s decisions. And he does nothave legal powers in other Anglican provinces. Nor can he steamroller the Lambeth Conference which every 10 years brings together all the world’s Anglican bishops.”How many divisions has the Pope,” Stalin famously sneered. But when the Pope snaps his fingers a lot of people jump.By contrast, an archbishop of Canterbury’s official authority is limited to the diocese of Canterbury.
He has juridical authority with, in the words of the First Vatican Council, “immediate universal jurisdiction” He is a head of state, with embassies around the world. He is the head of a government run by a huge bureaucracy with a billion Catholics, nominally at least, in its sway. Up his sleeve a pope always has the card of blind obedience, though most are too smart to play it. It is in this last area that papal comparisons arise.
But the Pope in Rome is a different creature in many ways. Since he took office George Carey has made more than 40 overseas trips, already overtaking the number undertaken by his predecessor Robert Runcie, who was the first at Canterbury to travel widely. Traditionally, church historians are fond of saying that an archbishop of Canterbury has at least four jobs.