CAPITAL : Lettre ouverte solennelle des fidèles aux quatre évêques de la FSSPX
http://www.virgo-maria.org/articles/2006/VM-2006-10-10-A-00-Appel_aux_quatre_eveques_de_la_FSSPX.pdf
Qui et
Pourquoi, depuis la mort de Mgr Lefebvre en 1991, a détourné la finalité surnaturelle de l’OPERATION-SURVIE des sacres de 1988, pour assigner à
la FSSPX ce FAUX objectif prioritaire de la «ré-conciliation» avec la Rome
conciliaire |
Qui a, depuis 2000, PROMU, et Pourquoi, le FAUX préalable de l’autorisation de la messe de Saint Pie V ? |
Pourquoi n’a-t-on pas posé la VRAIE question du rétablissement du VRAI Sacerdoce de VRAIS prêtres, ordonnés par des Evêques VALIDEMENT sacrés selon le rite VALIDE des Saints Ordres ? |
Qui a INVENTE, et POURQUOI, le faux préalable de la levée des «excommunications» ? |
Pourquoi n’a-t-on pas posé la VRAIE question de l’abrogation de Pontificalis Romani INVALIDE de 1968 et du rétablissement du vrai rite de la consécration épiscopale VALIDE d’avant 1968? |
A quoi servirait-il, en effet, de faire dire le VRAI rite de la messe par de FAUX prêtres ? |
Serait-ce
donc qu’après avoir obligé de VRAIS prêtres à dire une FAUSSE messe, l’on
veuille désormais faire dire la messe du |
Serait-ce que l’on
veuille «concilier» les VRAIS prêtres qui disent encore la VRAIE messe avec
un clergé aussi INVALIDE que le |
Gaude, Maria Virgo, cunctas hæreses sola interemisti.
(Tractus Missæ Salve Sancta Parens)
mardi 7 octobre 2008
Ce message peut être téléchargé au format PDF sur notre site http://www.virgo-maria.org/.
Rowan Williams exprime sa dévotion mariale à Lourdes avec Kasper
et estime l’« homosexualité comparable au mariage »
L’‘archevêque’ de Cantorbéry, chef de la Communion Anglicane, vient de se rendre à Lourdes, avec Kasper, pour y manifester sa reconnaissance des apparitions mariales. Au même moment ses écrits dans lesquels il dit toute son estime des relations homosexuelles en les plaçant au niveau du mariage, sont devenus publics dans le monde anglo-saxon. Comment ne pas penser à l’ex(?)-Anglican Mgr Williamson, l’évêque à la Rose[1] de la FSSPX, qui se présente en rempart de la famille et de la Tradition, et qui a protégé, ordonné et promu pendant plus de 10 ans des clercs violeurs-prédateurs homosexuels au sein de la FSSPX ?
A en jugé d’après l’exemple de Williams, dévotion mariale et éloge de la sodomie semblent faire bon ménage chez les Anglicans. Ce chef de la secte Anglicane va même jusqu’à écrire qu’une « relation sexuelle active (…) reflète l’amour de Dieu » ! (sic)
Chronique de la « Corporate Reunion » des Anglicans avec la Rome moderniste – n°8
Les milieux Anglicans et conciliaires n’en finissent pas de nous étonner et de nous consterner, tant l’effondrement intellectuel, religieux et moral semblent ne devoir y connaître aucun fond.
Deux semaines après le passage de son ami, l’abbé apostat Ratzinger-Benoît XVI, Rowan Williams vient de se rendre à Lourdes le 24 septembre, en compagnie du ‘cardinal’ l’abbé Walter Kasper, « Président du Conseil pontifical pour la Promotion de l’Unité de l’Église », et où, fait sans précédent pour un ‘archevêque’ de Cantorbéry, il a déclaré publiquement reconnaître les apparitions mariales, en cette année de leur 150ème anniversaire.
« and so Mary appeared here » « et donc Marie apparut ici »
La vidéo de ce discours à Lourdes peut être consultée depuis :
http://www.virgo-maria.org/D-Anglicans-R-C-Patriarcat/RWilliamsLourdes-1.html
ou téléchargée directement depuis :
http://www.virgo-maria.org/Fichier_Video/Archbishop-of-Canterbury-Lourdes-29-09-2008-Part-1.flv
Le ‘cardinal’ abbé Kasper a même eu l’impudence de qualifier cette profanation du sanctuaire marial de « sorte de miracle ».
« Le cardinal a présidé mercredi une célébration dans la Grotte des Apparitions, à Lourdes, à l'occasion d'un pèlerinage conjoint entre anglicans et catholiques parti du sanctuaire Notre-Dame de Walsingham, en Angleterre. Le contenu de l'homélie, prononcée par l'archevêque de Canterbury, le révérend Rowan Williams, est rapporté par L'Osservatore Romano dans son édition du 26 septembre.
Lourdes, a dit le cardinal Kasper, « est connue pour ses miracles ; aujourd'hui, nous sommes témoins nous aussi d'un miracle particulier. Qui aurait pu imaginer il y a seulement vingt ou trente ans que des pèlerins catholiques et anglicans auraient prié ensemble comme aujourd'hui ? ».
« Pour tous ceux qui connaissent les débats et les polémiques du passé relatifs à Marie entre catholiques et chrétiens des Églises non catholiques, pour tous ceux qui connaissent les réserves que nourrit le monde non catholique vis-à-vis des sites mariaux de pèlerinage comme Lourdes, pour toutes ces personnes-là, l'événement d'aujourd'hui, sans précédent, est une sorte de miracle », a-t-il souligné.
Selon le cardinal Kasper, Marie est un élément fondamental du mouvement œcuménique, même si cette question « n'est pas commune ou évidente parmi les œcuménistes ». » Zenit – Voir le communiqué en annexe A.
A peine quinze jours auparavant étaient sorties en Angleterre des révélations sur la haute estime dans laquelle Rowan Williams tient la sodomie, en déclarant les « relations homosexuelles comparables au mariage » (sic).
Nous reproduisons ci-dessous un extrait du fac-similé de la lettre manuscrite du 28 septembre 2000 dans laquelle Rowan Williams fait cet aveu :
Le texte intégral des échanges épistolaires peut être consulté depuis ma page de ce message VM sur :
L’ « archevêque » de Cantobéry écrit :
« I concluded that an active sexual relationship between two people of the same sex might therefore reflect the love of God in a way comparable to marriage, if and only if it had about it the same character of absolute covenanted faitfulness.”
Soit :
“ J’en vins à la conclusion qu’une relation homosexuelle active entre deux personnes du même sexe pourrait donc refléter l’amour de Dieu d’une manière comparable au mariage, si et seulement si elle était marquée du même caractère de fidélité engagée dans une alliance ».
La destruction de Sodome et Gomorrhe
Cette imposture d’un faux archevêque aux Ordres invalides qui loue la sodomie jusqu’à l’équiparer au mariage et qui vient ensuite honorer la Très Sainte Vierge Marie dans le lieu même où elle s’est présentée comme l’Immaculée Conception, le chef d’œuvre de la Création, sans péché, est une imposture nauséabonde.
C’est donc ce personnage que Mgr Fellay voudrait trouver comme « collègue » en cherchant à intégrer, par la levée du décret d’excommunication, la FSSPX au sein de la Grande Église Œcuménique et Universelle apostate que l’abbé apostat Ratzinger-Benoît XVI et ses complices de la hiérarchie conciliaire s’acharnent depuis des années à rassembler pour la substituer à la Sainte Eglise catholique ?
Comment ne pas penser à propos de Rowan Williams ‘archevêque’ de Cantorbéry, chef de la Communion Anglicane, à l’ex( ?)-Anglican Mgr Williamson, l’évêque à la Rose de la Fraternité, qui se présente en rempart de la famille et de la Tradition, alors qu’il a protégé[2], ordonné et promu pendant plus de 10 ans des clercs violeurs-prédateurs homosexuels au sein de la FSSPX ?
Après Rowan Williams le 24 septembre, ce sera l’ancien Anglican, Mgr. Williamson-‘Cunctator[3]’à la Rose[4], l’ancien protecteur, ordonnateur et promoteur opiniâtre à Winona durant 10 ans des clercs homosexuels prédateurs Carlos Urrutigoity et Eric Ensey[5], qui un mois plus tard, jour pour jour, le 24 octobre, sera à Lourdes pour le pèlerinage de la FSSPX.
Continuons le bon combat
La Rédaction de Virgo-Maria
© 2008 virgo-maria.org
ANNEXE A - Communiqué de Zenit[6]
ZF08092605 - 26-09-2008
Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-18911?l=french
Catholiques et anglicans réunis à Lourdes : un petit miracle ?
S’interroge le cardinal Kasper
ROME, Vendredi 26 septembre 2008 (ZENIT.org) - La dévotion à Marie joue un rôle fondamental dans la recherche de l'unité pleine et visible entre les chrétiens, a souligné le cardinal Walter Kasper, président du Conseil pontifical pour la promotion de l'unité des chrétiens.
Le cardinal a présidé mercredi une célébration dans la Grotte des Apparitions, à Lourdes, à l'occasion d'un pèlerinage conjoint entre anglicans et catholiques parti du sanctuaire Notre-Dame de Walsingham, en Angleterre. Le contenu de l'homélie, prononcée par l'archevêque de Canterbury, le révérend Rowan Williams, est rapporté par L'Osservatore Romano dans son édition du 26 septembre.
Lourdes, a dit le cardinal Kasper, « est connue pour ses miracles ; aujourd'hui, nous sommes témoins nous aussi d'un miracle particulier. Qui aurait pu imaginer il y a seulement vingt ou trente ans que des pèlerins catholiques et anglicans auraient prié ensemble comme aujourd'hui ? ».
« Pour tous ceux qui connaissent les débats et les polémiques du passé relatifs à Marie entre catholiques et chrétiens des Églises non catholiques, pour tous ceux qui connaissent les réserves que nourrit le monde non catholique vis-à-vis des sites mariaux de pèlerinage comme Lourdes, pour toutes ces personnes-là, l'événement d'aujourd'hui, sans précédent, est une sorte de miracle », a-t-il souligné.
Selon le cardinal Kasper, Marie est un élément fondamental du mouvement œcuménique, même si cette question « n'est pas commune ou évidente parmi les œcuménistes ».
La dévotion à Marie, a-t-il rappelé, est une question pleinement partagée avec les orthodoxes, mais « elle existait aussi à l'époque de la Réforme ».
« Luther a toute sa vie vénéré Marie avec ferveur. Il professait son nom, avec les anciens credo et conciles de l'Église indivise du premier millénaire, en tant que Vierge et Mère de Dieu. Il n'était critique qu'à l'égard de certaines pratiques, qu'il considérait comme des abus ou des exagérations », a-t-il ajouté. « Dans la Réforme anglaise du XVIème siècle, nous observons le même phénomène ».
Le refus de la doctrine sur la Vierge Marie est né plutôt durant l'époque des Lumières, dans « un esprit connu sous le nom de minimalisme mariologique », a expliqué le cardinal Kasper.
« Grâce à une lecture et une méditation renouvelées des Saintes Écritures, nous observons un changement lent mais décisif », a-t-il déclaré, citant plusieurs documents conjoints entre catholiques et luthériens qui vont dans ce sens.
« Marie n'est pas absente, elle est présente dans le dialogue œcuménique ; les Églises ont progressé, se sont rapprochées en ce qui concerne la doctrine sur Marie. Marie ne nous divise plus, mais nous réconcilie et nous unit en Jésus Christ son Fils », a-t-il ajouté.
Le cardinal Kasper a évoqué entre autres les difficultés que traverse actuellement le dialogue avec la communion anglicane, affirmant que ce pèlerinage « peut être considéré comme un signe positif et encourageant d'espérance, voire même comme un petit miracle ».
« Il y a motif d'espérer que Marie nous aide à surmonter les difficultés que traversent actuellement nos relations, et que nous puissions ainsi, avec l'aide de Dieu, poursuivre notre pèlerinage œcuménique commun ».
Le cardinal a parlé de Marie en tant que modèle de l'Église et a soulevé la question du salut, qui s'obtient par grâce divine et non pour une question de mérites et d'efforts, un point qui ne divise plus les chrétiens, a-t-il ajouté.
« Marie est un exemple, un modèle, une forme de notre état de disciple. Dieu demande que notre oui soit une réponse à son oui ; Dieu veut que, inspirés, soutenus et renforcés par sa grâce, nous collaborions et coopérions à son œuvre salvifique ».
Si les chrétiens continuent à être divisés, a-t-il affirmé, c'est parce que « notre amour et notre foi ont été affaiblis ». « Chaque fois que la pensée séculière et les paramètres de ce monde portent atteinte à l'Église, l'unité de l'Église est en danger ».
« Marie nous guide non pas vers ce qui plaît à tout le monde, mais nous conduit parfois aussi au pied de la croix. Donc, pour tracer à nouveau un chemin vers la pleine unité, il n'existe pas d'autres moyens que celui d'être comme Marie », a-t-il relevé.
Le cardinal Kasper a conclu son intervention en soulevant la question de la vénération de la Vierge et des saints, qui engendre quelque « difficulté » entre protestants et anglicans. « Mais comme n'importe quelle mère qui intercèderait pour ses enfants, et comme toute mère qui, après sa mort, intercèderait au ciel et du ciel, Marie aussi accompagne l'Église dans son pèlerinage », qui est aussi un pèlerinage « vers la pleine communion ».
Inma Álvarez
ANNEXE B – Texte anglais des correspondances[7]
Ruth Gledhill - Times Online - WBLG
« Lambeth Diary: 'My Lambeth Heaven' | All Posts | TTFND »
August 06, 2008
Archbishop Rowan: gay sex comparable to 'marriage'
As we report in The Times tonight, a correspondence between Dr Rowan Williams and evangelical
churchgoer Dr Deborah Pitt when he was Archbishop of Wales gives a fascinating
insight into his theological journey regarding homosexuality. He tells her how
he started out firmly on the traditionalist wing, and was persuaded in the
1980s to adopt a liberal view. Then he describes how he holds this in tandem
with his role as a church leader, a figure of unity. We'll post pdfs of the
correspondence online shortly. Below is the full text of Dr Williams'
letters and also extracts from the second of Dr Pitt's original letters to the
Archbishop. See also pdf files of the Archbishop's letters at Times Online. Mary Ann Sieghart, whose columns were influential in his being
chosen for Canterbury in the first place, has done a good comment. See also our Times leader on the letters and what they mean for the Archbishop and the Church. I've also written
an extra piece inside the paper giving some of the history of this complex debate. Pictures taken by
Paul
Rogers on the last day at Lambeth.
From Archbishop Rowan:
13 March 2001
Dear Dr. Pitt,
I’m sorry not to have written
sooner to thank you for responding so fully to my letter and for sending the
materials. I wish I had time to reply more fully myself, but must content
myself with saying only a couple of things. Most Christian homosexuals I know
have no interest in ‘converting’ anyone to their orientation, far from it; nor
are they asking for a charter for promiscuity. I should deplore either of
those, and I have said publicly that anything that looks like pressure to adopt
homosexual behaviour, especially in an educations context, is wrong in my eyes.
Again, I know hardly any Christian homosexuals who believe that Jesus was
homosexual, or that they are superior to heterosexuals. I have some
reservations about LGCM’s agenda; but even they do not claim these things. When
they speak of ‘homophobia’, a word I dislike, I admit, they have some perfectly
genuine evidence of prejudice I regard as shocking. Scripture can be used and
has been used in many ways to license prejudice, and I don’t think they mean
any more than this. I must also say that there is real evidence in schools of
bullying around this issue and even of suicide among young men particularly,
because of attitudes expressed. If Christians could at least unite in
condemning this, even when they disagree with the behaviour of some
homosexuals, that would be an advance. When I said that I wasn’t campaigning
for a new morality, I meant, among other things, that if the Church ever said
that homosexual behaviour wasn’t automatically sinful, the same rules of
faithfulness and commitment would have to apply as to heterosexual union.
Whether that would best be expressed in something like a ceremony of
commitment, I don’t know; I am wary of anything that looks like heterosexual
marriage being licensed, because marriage has other dimensions to do with
children and society. I doubt whether there will be a change in practice in the
near future, at the very least.
Sorry I can’t now reply at more length. Again, my thanks for your response and
its tone. My prayers for you, and my request for prayers for an averagely
muddled bishop!
From Archbishop Rowan
28 September 2000
Dear Dr. Pitt,
I must apologise for leaving your letter on August 9th so long unanswered. I’m afraid that rather a lot was waiting for me when I returned from holiday, and the less urgent letters, as always, sank in the pile!
This will have to be a relatively brief response to your very substantial question, but I hope it may suggest a few avenues. Until about 1980, I fully shared the traditional ethical understanding of homosexuality as a condition of (at best) some sort of ‘privation’, the practice of which was strictly forbidden to Christians by scripture and tradition. My mind was unsettled by contact, as a university teacher, with one of two genuinely serious Christians who had concluded after prayer and reflections that the scriptural prohibitions were addressed to heterosexuals looking for sexual variety in their experience; but that the Bible does not address the matter of appropriate behaviour for those who are, for whatever reason, homosexual by instinct of nature (I don’t deny that some varieties of homosexuality may be therapeutically altered, by the way, but I don’t believe this is true of all; discernment in this area is very difficult indeed).
So after 1980 I continued to study the issue sporadically, reading what I could on the psychology as well as the theology of it; and by the end of the 80’s I had definitely come to the conclusion that scripture was not dealing with the predicament of persons whom we should recognise as homosexual by nature. And many of the arguments assumed by theologians in the Middle Ages and later increasingly seemed to beg questions or to rest on contested grounds. I concluded that an active sexual relationship between two people of the same sex might therefore reflect the love of God in a way comparable to marriage, if and only if it had about it the same character of absolute covenanted faithfulness. Peter Coleman’s book, called, I think, Homosexual Christians, helped here, as later on did Jeffrey John’s pamphlet, Permanent, Stable, Faithful. I was not convinced by the argument that the ethics for homosexual relations should be different from those for heterosexuals (i.e. that they should not be exclusively faithful or lifelong).
The collection of essays called The Way Forward? edited by Tim Bradshaw a few years ago represents a helpful dialogue between Christians of generally doctrinally conservative convictions who have come to different conclusions on this, and I wish the discussion could be as constructive and sympathetic in the wider Church as it was in this group. But it is now a very much politicised question, with many treating it as the sole or primary marker of Christian orthodoxy. I find myself personally in a difficult situation, between the pressures of the clear majority view in my Church, my own theological convictions on this matter (as someone who has no desire at all to overthrow the authority of scripture here, but wants to ask if it has been rightly read on this matter) and the complex needs of individuals for pastoral counsel and support. I don’t see myself as a campaigner for a new morality; but if I’m asked for my views as a theologian rather than a church leader, I have to be honest and admit that they are as I’ve said.
One last point. The Church has shifted its stance on several matters – notably the rightness of lending money at interest (condemned outright in the Old Testament and by all theologians before the seventeenth century) and the moral admissibility of contraception (generally denounced by the Anglican Church up to the middle of the twentieth century) so I am bound to ask if this is another such issue. If I am really seriously wrong on this, I can only pray to be shown the truth. I’d ask simply that Christians might be a little more ready than they seem to accept the good faith of those who have to a different conclusion (either way)!
I don’t know if this will be any help to you, but I’m very willing to explain further if you wish (so long as you can be patient with my slowness in answering letters!). Thank you for writing.
Dr Pitt wrote:
Your Grace, Thank you for your letter of 28.09.00, and for your frankness about your views on Homosexuality and how you reached them. The topic is a huge and diverse one with many ramifications, and has given me quite a bit of food for thought. ..Your letter was very gracious, and I hope the tone of my letter is not affected by the anxiety your views caused me.
I was interested to read that
your interest in the subject was piqued by contact with homosexual
professing Christians who were grappling with the morality of the matter. My
own perspective has come about largely from personal contacts also, through my
work as a medical doctor in both general practice and more recently Psychiatry,
and having worked on both sides of the Atlantic. Yes, it is rubbing shoulders
with the people personally affected by moral dilemmas that causes one to
question and study one’s own presuppositions and the orthodox Christian
teaching; with regard to the latter it appears that we both started from the
same place...
You used the term ‘homosexual by
instinct or nature’, and you make a distinction between homosexual acts done by
heterosexuals and those done by those who are exclusively homosexual, the
latter being authentic in some way and the former not. I do not know whether
the Bible makes such a distinction, but I do not think scientific investigation
has yielded precise distinctions about the behaviours or personality traits of
these two groups. Scientific research on any behaviour, especially sexual
behaviour, is extremely difficult to do accurately. ...
The Biblical yardstick for sexual behaviour is, I think, the Creation story, in which I trust you and I both believe, either literally or as Myth. It talks of God creating Man and Woman, of the difficulties between them and the introduction of Sin into their relationship and the consequences thereof... Dr. Edward Norman stated in one of his ‘meditations’ (The Times, I think) that homosexuality appears to be a gift from God, ‘an involuntary condition; it is how some are made’. But God does not seem to have told us how that gift should be exercised. What parameters, what constraints? There are certainly lots of constraints given us for control of our other sexual, or aggressive or acquisitive instincts. Why has God not endorsed such behaviour by giving instruction? Why was there no marriage law for such? But there is nothing, no positive endorsement for this trait or behaviour. I think it is dangerous to conclude other than from the Bible that God endorses homosexual behaviour, loving or not....
I agree, the Church has shifted her stance on several matters. The examples you gave, the admissibility of contraception and the rightness of lending money at interest, provoked some wry thoughts. The latter has led to the rise of capitalism and the widespread pursuit of wealth and gain and to the rampant exploitation of the world’s resources. I have heard that the Amazon rain forest is likely to be the next victim of this rampant greed. The Anglican Church is caught up in this same mechanism, as are we all to some extent. ... Personal debts have risen dramatically and there are more illegitimate births than ever. There is an accompanying tendency to throw money, or birth control pills or morning after pills, at the problems of society that arise, rather than address the deeper issues of personal responsibility and adequate education and warnings. The darkness can never overcome the light. But if we whom Christ called the light of the world cannot ensure that the light burns on, then it will go out. And the light, the prophetic voice of the Church calling people back to God’s standards no matter how unpopular that voice, seems to get dimmer.
Truly, God loves all sinners; perhaps the greatest sinners are the ones He has the most compassion for, for they have lost so much. But we live in a fallen world, so He gave us first the Ten Commandments for, amongst other things, our protection, I believe, and second of all Christ for our redemption.
So, has the Anglican Church been wrong, as you surmise, Archbishop Rowan, about Homosexuality all these years? No, I don’t think so. I accept that your conclusions have been reached in a spirit of honest and compassionate enquiry. The idea that the ethics of homosexual relations should be no different from those of heterosexuals, i.e. exclusively faithful or lifelong, is an attractive and plausible one. I am afraid I have not read any of the books (perhaps I should read them) which promote the idea that such relationships are equal qualitatively to heterosexual ones. I don’t see how they can be if there is no possibility of children; how can they be anything but inferior, at least in scope?
Archbishop Rowan, I have written far more than I originally intended....You have shared your thoughts frankly with me, and I appreciate the spirit of goodwill with which you have written...
Yours sincerely
Deborah Pitt
(Note: Dr Pitt was an Anglican at the time of this correspondence but has since left the Church in Wales and is now a member of an evangelical free church.)
ANNEXE C –[8]
From
August 7, 2008
Rowan Williams was selected as a liberal and now he should govern as one
If only more members of the Anglican Communion displayed as much humility as Rowan Williams, who signs himself endearingly in one of these letters as “an averagely muddled bishop”. And if only Dr Williams could display just a little less humility in his job of leading the Church, the current stand-off in the Communion might have more chance of being resolved.
Until now, Anglicans knew Dr Williams, in his personal views, to be a liberal on the matter of gay relationships, but the evidence rested only on a rather oblique argument, set out in an essay nearly 20 years ago. These letters, however, make a much stronger and clearer case for Christians to be accepting of homosexuality, since they challenge the very scriptural basis of the Biblical prohibitions on gay sex. Dr Williams concludes that passages describing homosexuality as sinful are referring to promiscuous homosexuality by heterosexuals, rather than committed relationships between two people who are gay by nature.
This is a respectable point for an eminent theologian to argue, and it is a great pity that he has not been brave enough to argue it as Archbishop of Canterbury. Instead he has, if anything, sided with the conservatives. “I find myself personally in a difficult situation,” he admits in the letter, “between the pressures of the clear majority view in my Church [and] my own theological convictions.”
The majority view in the Church was also once against interest-bearing bank accounts, condoms and women priests. Scripture was cited in all three cases to support the conservatives' case. In the end, the arguments were won, for the Church must eventually reflect the society within which it works.
It is not as if members of the Communion did not know Dr Williams was a liberal when they chose him. And, despite Africans' claims that the process was a colonial imposition, they did choose him: although the appointment was formally made by the Queen on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, the Archbishop's name was put forward by an electoral college made up of Church members. It consulted widely, in a process that took far longer than a papal convocation, and was endorsed by a meeting of all the Anglican primates in the Communion. As Anthony Sadler, the then Archbishops' Secretary for Appointments, wrote to The Times yesterday about the meeting of the primates: “I have never attended a meeting where the presence of the Holy Spirit was so clearly and movingly in evidence.”
“We were elected as new Labour and we will govern as new Labour,” was Tony Blair's oft-incanted phrase whenever party activists put pressure on him to give in to their more left-wing demands.
“I was elected as a liberal and will govern as a liberal,” should be Dr Williams's mantra too. Members of the Anglican Communion knew what they were getting. They expected him to be liberal in office.
Instead, he has sacrificed his beliefs for the quixotic goal of Anglican unity. Even that has not satisfied the hardline conservatives. That they seem determined to crucify him now is a tragedy. He is so much more than an “averagely muddled bishop”, for all his protestations. He should have the confidence of his beliefs; and he should be given the space to propound them.
ANNEXE D –[9]
August 7, 2008
Rowan Williams : gay relationships 'comparable to marriage'
Rowan Williams believes that gay sexual relationships can “reflect the love of God” in a way that is comparable to marriage, The Times has learnt.
Gay partnerships pose the same ethical questions as those between men and women, and the key issue for Christians is that they are faithful and lifelong, he believes.
Dr Williams is known to be personally liberal on the issue but the strength of his views, revealed in private correspondence shown to The Times, will astonish his critics.
The news threatens to reopenbitter divisions over ordaining gay priests, which pushed the Anglican Communion towards a split.
As Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Williams recommitted the Anglican Communion to its orthodox position that homosexual practice is incompatible with Scripture at the Lambeth Conference, which closed on Sunday.
However, in an exchange of letters with an evangelical Christian, written eight years ago when he was Archbishop of Wales, he described his belief that biblical passages criticising homosexual sex were not aimed at people who were gay by nature.
He argued that scriptural prohibitions were addressed to heterosexuals looking for sexual variety. He wrote: “I concluded that an active sexual relationship between two people of the same sex might therefore reflect the love of God in a way comparable to marriage, if and only if it had about it the same character of absolute covenanted faithfulness.” Dr Williams described his view as his “definitive conclusion” reached after 20 years of study and prayer. He drew a distinction between his own beliefs as a theologian and his position as a church leader, for which he had to take account of the traditionalist view.
The letters, written in the autumn of 2000 and 2001, were exchanged with Deborah Pitt, a psychiatrist and evangelical Christian living in his former archdiocese in South Wales, who had written challenging him on the issue.
In reply, he described how his view began to change from that of opposing gay relationships in 1980. His mind became “unsettled” by contact as a university teacher with Christian students who believed that the Bible forbade promiscuity rather than gay sex.
Dr Williams, who was ordained a priest in 1978, became a lecturer at Cambridge two years later and was appointed Dean of Clare College in 1984.
He told Dr Pitt that by the end of the 1980s he had “definitely come to the conclusion” that the Bible did not denounce faithful relationships between people who happened to be gay.
He cited two academics as pivotal in influencing his view. One of them was Jeffrey John, the celibate homosexual whom he later forced not to become Bishop of Reading after an outcry from conservatives.
In his 1989 essay The Body’s Grace, Dr Williams argued that the Church’s acceptance of contraception meant that it acknowledged the validity of nonprocreative sex. This could be taken as a green light for gay sex.
Liberals have been bitterly disappointed that a man whom they regarded as chosen to advance their agenda has instead abided by the traditionalist consensus of the majority.
In the correspondence Dr Williams wrote of his regret that the issue had become “very much politicised” and was treated by many as “the sole or primary marker of Christian orthodoxy”.
Asked to comment yesterday, Lambeth Palace quoted a recent interview in which the Archbishop said: “When I teach as a bishop I teach what the Church teaches. In controverted areas it is my responsibility to teach what the Church has said and why.”
ANNEXE E –[10]
From
August 7, 2008
New light on Archbishop of Canterbury's view on homosexuality
Theology students at Cambridge in the 1980s remember their lecturer and tutor Rowan Williams, now 58, as a deeply spiritual, holy and compassionate man. They also remember the hostility with which he was viewed by the growing number of evangelicals gaining admission to one of the nation's two top seats of learning.
The battles played out among Christian students in the sanctums of Cambridge colleges mirror the war being waged today in the Anglican Communion. Dr Williams left academia, by all accounts reluctantly, as none could match him for intellect and spirituality in the ivory towers of Oxford and Cambridge.
He went to Wales, first as Bishop of Monmouth, then Archbishop of the province, his home country but also a see that fitted perfectly his increasingly liberal Anglo-Catholicism.
Deborah Pitt, a psychiatrist in Wales, wrote twice to him about homosexuality, describing his own intellectual journey on the issue. “Until about 1980, I fully shared the traditional ethical understanding of homosexuality as a condition of (at best) some sort of ‘privation’, the practice of which was strictly forbidden to Christians by Scripture and tradition,” he wrote.
His letters were written in 2000 and 2001. Three years earlier, he was considered for Bishop of Southwark. His name was about to be submitted to the Prime Minister when Lord Carey, then Archbishop of Canterbury, summoned him to Lambeth and quizzed him about his writings on sexuality.
Lord Carey is said to have asked if he would sign up to the Church of England bishops' statement, Issues in Human Sexuality, a notorious document that permits active gay relationships for laity but bans them for clergy. Dr Williams said he could not. He agreed, under pressure from Lord Carey, to withdraw from Southwark. Lord Carey, whose preferred successor at Canterbury was Michael Nazir-Ali, Bishop of Rochester, was furious when Dr Williams was appointed instead.
Tony Blair was said to be equally angry that Dr Williams had lost Southwark and was keen to have him at Canterbury.
Amid this web of loyalties, the internally conflicted views of Dr Williams himself became lost. He was assumed to be a liberal on sexuality. Little account was taken of his conservative view of leadership, requiring him to put church unity before his own views.
His letters to Dr Pitt, before he was appointed to Canterbury but after the Southwark debacle, show how he was already working out how to reconcile his private theological view with his public persona.
But for liberals in the late 1990s, Dr Williams was the great Welsh hope who would turn back the clock on the famous Resolution 1.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference, that reinforced the strictly Biblical line that all gay sex was wrong. They drew their confidence from the foreword he wrote in 1988 to the book, Speaking Love's Name, when he argued strongly for the liberal position. The next year, in his essay The Body's Grace, Dr Williams continued the liberal theme.
He argued: “If we are looking for a sexual ethic that can be seriously informed by our Bible, there is a good deal to steer us away from assuming that reproductive sex is a norm, however important and theologically significant it may be ... in a church which accepts the legitimacy of contraception, the absolute condemnation of same-sex relations of intimacy must rely either on an abstract fundamentalist deployment of a number of very ambiguous texts, or on a problematic and non-scriptural theory about natural complementarity, applied narrowly and crudely to physical differentiation without regard to psychological structures.”
It was in the midst of the liberal versus conservative warfare over homosexuality at Lambeth ten years ago, that the lobbying to have Dr Williams succeed George Carey as Archbishop began in earnest.
Dr Williams, nearly always in the black shirts of his Anglo-Catholic brethren rather than liberal pink or evangelical bluish-purple, seemed a willing object of this discreet and very Anglican campaign. Observers reckoned just one other English bishop, another favourite for Canterbury, managed to get to as many parties.
Amid the charged atmosphere his name was leaked to The Times as the first choice of the Crown Appointments Commission, before the future Archbishop himself knew. The resulting fracas left him uncertain as to whether he should take the job. He was persuaded to accept by a senior bishop who believed that only he had the political and theological skills to hold the Anglican Communion together.
A year after his enthronement, the Bishop of Oxford nominated the celibate but openly-gay cleric Jeffrey John as his suffragan in Reading. Dr Williams at first approved the appointment. The subsequent furore among evangelicals in Oxford led to the establishment of Anglican Mainstream, now a key player in evangelical politics of the Global South conservative provinces.
Mainstream lobbied hard against Dr John and the Archbishop bowed to the pressure, persuading him to withdraw in a fraught meeting at Lambeth Palace. Afterwards he knelt before the man whose pro-gay essay Permanent, Faithful, Stable was such an influence on his own liberal views, and asked for his blessing.
Dr John was subsequently appointed Dean of St Albans. The liberal lobby has struggled to forgive Dr Williams for what is still regarded as a betrayal. But he was vindicated when the Episcopal Church elected and consecrated Gene Robinson in 2003, and the diocese of New Westminster in Canada authorised same-sex blessings. The consequence was the “tear in the fabric” of the Anglican Communion his advisers had warned of.
The consequences still reverberate around the Communion. Conservative bishops of Africa and Asia now meet regularly; evangelicals from the Global South, the US and Britain have set up the Global Anglican Future Conference as a rival Lambeth Conference with a strategy of takeover from within.
There is speculation that the Episcopal Church in the US might be prepared to secede from the Communion in order to pursue an agenda that a majority of bishops, clergy and laity believe is the only credible way forward.
The latest moves were played out at the Lambeth Conference. Dr Williams repeatedly made clear that there could be no going back on the strictly Biblical line against gay sex. In his final press conference, elated at having avoided an explosive schism, he appeared to lay blame for the rifts at the door of the liberals of the US.
And in the end, a question mark hangs over whether it will all have been worth it. For conservatives, there can be no compromise on an issue that has become the touchstone of orthodoxy. It is possible that history will recognise the two wings of Anglicanism are as irreconcilable as, in the end, Dr Williams's own divided heart.
ACADEMICS WHO INFLUENCED HIM :
JEFFREY JOHN : Liberal thinker from South Wales
Like Rowan Williams, Jeffrey John is from South Wales and his liberal Catholicism is similar in many respects to that of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Dr John inspires similar loyalty among those who have experienced his teaching and pastoral ministry. He also provokes hostility among those who find his views on gay sex unacceptable.
Dr Williams names Dr John's essay Permanent, Faithful, Stable as an influence on him in liberalising his views on this issue. In the pamphlet, first published in 1993 and again in 2000, Dr John presents a powerful argument for the blessing of gay relationships by the Church, provided that they are like Christian marriage in terms of convenanted fidelity.
Along with Dr Williams, in 1990 he founded Affirming Catholicism, a movement to bring about liberal reforms in line with traditional theology in the Church of England.
After his abortive appointment as Bishop of Reading in 2003, he was made Dean of St Albans, where he inspires passionate loyalty among members of the cathedral congregation, many of whom remain outraged at the humiliation he suffered when persuaded by Dr Williams to withdraw from Reading.
PETER COLEMAN : Pilot through the stormy waters
The second academic to influence Rowan Williams's liberal views is Peter Coleman. In 1980 his book Christian Attitudes to Homosexuality examined from an objective viewpoint the biblical, legal and other arguments for and against homosexuality. In 1989 Gay Christians - a Moral Dilemma continued to explore the arguments for and against gay relationships.
Coleman, a former Bishop Suffragan of Crediton, who was killed in a car accident aged 73 in 2002, was active on the Church of England's General Synod, where he achieved a reputation as one of the nicest and most genuinely intellectual men in the Church.He was typical of the Anglican gentlemen bishops of his generation, as epitomised by Archbishop Robert Runcie. He was even married to an Austrian princess. His was the era when many believed that God was dead and the Church soon would be. Several bishops - although not him - saw themselves as being in the business of managing decline. He and others of his time would be astonished by the revival of religious debate at the start of the 21st century. His death was a tragedy, not least because he was one of the few men who could advise Dr Williams on how to steer the Church through the present stormy waters.
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