The “leadership” of Dr. Rowan Williams seems to be coming to an end.
The BBC reports:
Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has announced he is to stand down in December.
He will take the position of Master of Magdalene College at the University of Cambridge from January next year, his website says.
Dr Williams, 61, was appointed the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury in 2002.
In a statement on his website, the head of the 85 million-strong Anglican Communion said serving as archbishop had been “an immense privilege”.
He said stepping down had not been an easy decision and that during the time he had left there was “much to do”.
Dr Williams thanked those in the Church of England and the wider Anglican Communion who had “brought vision, hope and excitement” during his ministry.
In a more in-depth interview, Dr Williams reflected on growing divisions within the Anglican Church, and said it seemed some conflicts would not go away “however long you struggle with them”.
Under his leadership, the Church of England has come close to splitting over the ordination of gay clergy and women bishops. Dr Williams has consistently supported the ordination of women, and previously showed no objection to the appointment of an openly-gay bishop in Reading.
Dr Williams also reflected on his controversial remarks in 2008 that adoption of certain aspects of Sharia law in the UK seemed “unavoidable,” saying he stood by his argument.
You can walk down memory lane with us at CMR stories concerning Dr. Williams.
Ah, remember when he pretty much called Shakespeare a jerky Catholic.
How about when he said the Catholic Church had lost all credibility.
His communion service for gay clergy.
In many ways Dr. Williams has been a catastrophe. It’ll be interesting to see who his successor is.
March 17, 2012 at 11:37 pm
from CNS:
Archbishop Williams’ homily at the evening prayer service with the Pope focused on how the Camaldolese (monks and nuns) efforts to balance solitude and community life teach the virtues individual Christians and Christian communities need to accept each other, work together and witness the Gospel to all.
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,”
Christ said: “Thou art Peter and upon this rock, I will build my church.” And further, Christ said:”Whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven them and whose sins you shall retain they shall be retained.” And again Christ said: “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” These are the keys to the kingdom given to Peter as head of the Apostles.
Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism, Williams said, both are committed to “a vision of the restoration of full sacramental communion, of a Eucharistic life that is fully visible, and thus a witness that is fully credible, so that a confused and tormented world may enter into the welcome and transforming light of Christ.”
The light of Christ is the Real Presence, the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, handed down to us through the Apostolic Succession of Peter through every Pope, who is the Vicar of Christ, the Servant of the Servants of God, who are the Bishops.
Williams continues: But Catholic-Anglican unity is imperfect, at least in part because Catholics and Anglicans have an “unstable and incomplete” recognition of one another as the [B]ody of Christ, Archbishop Williams said. “Without such ultimate recognition we are not yet fully free to share the transforming power of the Gospel” within the Christian community and in the world.
He told Vatican Radio that Anglicans and Roman Catholics “can become so fixated” on issues of authority and church structure “that we can forget the gift of baptism and the gift of one another in baptism,” which are the true basis of unity.
Baptism is a Sacrament. In the Sacrament of Baptism persons come to God. In the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, God comes to us. As Head of the Church of England, Queen Elizabeth II is Archbishop William’s “pope”. The only “stable and complete” recognition of one another as the Body of Christ is through the Sacraments of the Catholic Church.
Archbishop Williams spoke again March 11 at St. Gregory, giving a conference on ecumenism and monasticism along with Father Robert Hale, prior of the New Camaldoli Monastery in Big Sur, Calif.
Williams continues: “One of the hardest, yet most important, lessons the different Christian communities today have to learn is that they cannot live without each other and that no single one of them in isolation possesses the entirety of the Gospel,” he said.
“The entirety of the Gospel” is in the deposit of the Faith in the Catholic Church. Visibly absent from Archbishop Williams’ speeches are the Sacraments, especially the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.
March 17, 2012 at 11:51 pm
Steve "scotju" Dalton: I must admit that Williams looks more like an overgrown chiorboy. Dorian Gray was nicer looking.
March 18, 2012 at 12:33 am
Anonymous 1:34 Pope Benedict XVI is trying to save Rowan Williams soul…
Becoming an accomplice to Heresy does not equal squashing it in order to save a soul.
A great American stigmata used to reply when questioned about today's goings on…
"Wait for Peter"
We will be given a Holy Father that will draw out Satan's Legions and restore all things in Christ.
He will take the name Peter II.
When the Holy Ghost so moves, make certain you are Catholic.
*
March 18, 2012 at 8:02 am
Rowan Williams – like so many others – a good mind wasted, sucked in by the spirit of the times. Too bad, really. The corrosion of mediocrity stains him like rust on an old wreck about to be shipped off to the junk yard.
March 18, 2012 at 8:06 pm
Chesterton once said that the Church of England is just a hobby for the younger sons of squires.
March 18, 2012 at 11:40 pm
The Anglican Church was established, to put it in a nutshell, because a king wanted to change his wife. (Yes I know a lot of stuff happened into the reign of Elizabeth but that's the core of it.) Why on earth does anybody give it or its offshoots credence?
John Paul II loved Marcial Maciel, the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, who seems to have led a pretty horrendous double life. Being Pope does not mean that those the Pope loves as friends are not seriously flawed. That's nowhere near the definition of papal infallibility.
March 19, 2012 at 2:57 am
Benedict being friends with Williams just means he thinks he's an okay guy who's pleasant to be around—I'm pretty sure "friend" and "not full of it" are completely independent concepts. Don't you have friends whose opinions, in at least one area, are complete horse-hockey?
March 19, 2012 at 3:19 am
Pope Benedict XVI knows too, that when he visited England, Williams said something to the effect that "You are the head of the church in Europe and I am the head of the church in England" in his welcoming speech. "Rowan Williams- a good mind wasted"
March 22, 2012 at 7:51 pm
There's NOT going to be a Peter II. What nonsense….