Archive for tag: Rowan Williams

Archive pour tag : Rowan Williams

It would help if we had a single, clear story we could believe about violence – it’s getting worse because of this or that factor in our world, so we know whom to blame; it’s getting better as we all become more educated and secular, so we don’t have to worry in the long term. But the evidence is profoundly confusing.

Richard Bessel begins his lucid and well-documented book with a round-up of contemporary views, from those who think first of the astronomical statistics of humanly devised injury and death in the 20th century to those (like Steven Pinker in a much-discussed recent book) for whom what matters is the gradual change in sensibility that has made us simply more sensitive to the suffering of others – as well as the relative absence of major international conflict in the past half-century or so. As Bessel observes, Pinker’s statistics will seem a little academic if you happen to live in South Sudan or Syria (or Baltimore or Johannesburg).

The paradox of our era in the modern North Atlantic world is that while we are probably objectively more secure against the casual daily risk of violence than our ancestors, we are more anxious and more outraged by the prospect as well as the reality of violence, and more prone to extend its meaning to forms of offensive or menacing speech and action that would not have registered for those ancestors. We are, in a word, more preoccupied with violence; hence the subtitle, A Modern Obsession.
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Posted: Aug. 6, 2015 • Permanent link: ecumenism.net/?p=8919
Categories: OpinionIn this article: Rowan Williams, violence
Transmis : 6 aoüt 2015 • Lien permanente : ecumenism.net/?p=8919
Catégorie : OpinionDans cet article : Rowan Williams, violence

In his final Thought for the Day this morning on BBC Radio 4, the Archbishop of Canterbury talks about the recent killings in Connecticut and discounts the argument often put forward that “it’s not guns that kill, it’s people” saying: “People use guns. But in a sense guns use people, too. When we have the technology for violence easily to hand, our choices are skewed and we are more vulnerable to being manipulated into violent action.”
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Posted: Dec. 22, 2012 • Permanent link: ecumenism.net/?p=2285
Categories: ACNSIn this article: guns, Rowan Williams, violence
Transmis : 22 déc. 2012 • Lien permanente : ecumenism.net/?p=2285
Catégorie : ACNSDans cet article : guns, Rowan Williams, violence

The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has today revealed that he is to step down from his role at the end of the year. His decision comes after 10 years in the post and after accepting the position of Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge.
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Posted: Mar. 16, 2012 • Permanent link: ecumenism.net/?p=2152
Categories: NewsIn this article: Anglican, Rowan Williams
Transmis : 16 mars 2012 • Lien permanente : ecumenism.net/?p=2152
Catégorie : NewsDans cet article : Anglican, Rowan Williams

Remembering the common roots of the Christianity they share, Roman Catholics and Anglicans should renew their commitments to praying and working for Christian unity, Pope Benedict XVI said.

The Pope and Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury, spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion, held an evening prayer service March 10 at Rome’s Church of St. Gregory on the Caelian Hill, the church from which Pope Gregory the Great sent St. Augustine of Canterbury and his fellow monks to evangelize England in 597.

The service was part of celebrations marking the 1,000th anniversary of the founding of the Camaldolese branch of the Benedictine order. Camaldoli monks and nuns live and pray at the Church of St. Gregory and have an active program of ecumenical contacts.
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Posted: Mar. 12, 2012 • Permanent link: ecumenism.net/?p=7012
Categories: CNSIn this article: Anglican, Archbishop of Canterbury, Benedict XVI, Catholic, dialogue, pope, Rowan Williams
Transmis : 12 mars 2012 • Lien permanente : ecumenism.net/?p=7012
Catégorie : CNSDans cet article : Anglican, Archbishop of Canterbury, Benedict XVI, Catholic, dialogue, pope, Rowan Williams

It’s sometimes been said in recent years that the Church of England is still used by British society as a sort of stage on which to conduct by proxy the arguments that society itself doesn’t know how to handle. It certainly helps to explain the obsessional interest in what the Church has to say about issues of sex and gender. It may help to explain just what has been going on around St Paul’s Cathedral in the last couple of weeks.
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Posted: Nov. 1, 2011 • Permanent link: ecumenism.net/?p=1818
Categories: News, OpinionIn this article: Anglican, economic ethics, Rowan Williams
Transmis : 1 nov. 2011 • Lien permanente : ecumenism.net/?p=1818
Catégorie : News, OpinionDans cet article : Anglican, economic ethics, Rowan Williams

An address given by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, at a conference to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, on November 17, 2010. The theme of the conference was “Towards a new stage of ecumenical dialogue.”
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Posted: Nov. 17, 2010 • Permanent link: ecumenism.net/?p=1781
Categories: NewsIn this article: Rowan Williams
Transmis : 17 nov. 2010 • Lien permanente : ecumenism.net/?p=1781
Catégorie : NewsDans cet article : Rowan Williams

You have spoken, Your Grace, of the historic meeting that took place, almost thirty years ago, between two of our predecessors – Pope John Paul the Second and Archbishop Robert Runcie – in Canterbury Cathedral. There, in the very place where Saint Thomas of Canterbury bore witness to Christ by the shedding of his blood, they prayed together for the gift of unity among the followers of Christ. We continue today to pray for that gift, knowing that the unity Christ willed for his disciples will only come about in answer to prayer, through the action of the Holy Spirit, who ceaselessly renews the Church and guides her into the fullness of truth.
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Posted: Sept. 17, 2010 • Permanent link: ecumenism.net/?p=6726
Categories: TabletIn this article: Anglican, Benedict XVI, Catholic, Church of England, Rowan Williams
Transmis : 17 sept. 2010 • Lien permanente : ecumenism.net/?p=6726
Catégorie : TabletDans cet article : Anglican, Benedict XVI, Catholic, Church of England, Rowan Williams

Fifty years after the first meeting of a Pope and an Archbishop of Canterbury in modern times — that of Pope John XXIII and Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher, in December 1960 — Pope Benedict XVI paid a fraternal visit to Archbishop Rowan Williams.
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Posted: Sept. 17, 2010 • Permanent link: ecumenism.net/?p=641
Categories: Communiqué, DialogueIn this article: Anglican, Archbishop of Canterbury, Benedict XVI, Catholic, Christian unity, Rowan Williams
Transmis : 17 sept. 2010 • Lien permanente : ecumenism.net/?p=641
Catégorie : Communiqué, DialogueDans cet article : Anglican, Archbishop of Canterbury, Benedict XVI, Catholic, Christian unity, Rowan Williams

Pope & Archbishop of Canterbury call for common Christian witness

Pope Benedict XVI and Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury knelt together before the tomb of an 11th-century Christian king after affirming the need for Catholics and Anglicans to give a united witness to society. St. Edward the Confessor, who is buried in the Anglicans’ Westminster Abbey, reigned five centuries before English Christians became divided.

The pope and the primate of the Church of England paid homage together to the Christian king Sept. 17 at the end of an afternoon that included public speeches, a 30-minute private meeting and a joint ecumenical prayer service in Westminster Abbey. Archbishop Williams welcomed Pope Benedict as the first pope ever to visit Westminster Abbey, which was home to a community of Catholic Benedictine monks until 1540 when King Henry VIII dissolved the monastic community.
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Posted: Sept. 17, 2010 • Permanent link: ecumenism.net/?p=640
Categories: CNS, Communiqué, DialogueIn this article: Anglican, Archbishop of Canterbury, Benedict XVI, Catholic, Christian unity, Rowan Williams, witness
Transmis : 17 sept. 2010 • Lien permanente : ecumenism.net/?p=640
Catégorie : CNS, Communiqué, DialogueDans cet article : Anglican, Archbishop of Canterbury, Benedict XVI, Catholic, Christian unity, Rowan Williams, witness

Anglican leader’s concern for unity reflects Vatican concerns

Vatican concerns about how some recent decisions of the U.S. Episcopal Church will impact the search for full Anglican-Roman Catholic unity are echoed in a reflection by Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury, the head of the Anglican Communion.

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Posted: July 29, 2009 • Permanent link: ecumenism.net/?p=594
Categories: CNSIn this article: Anglican, Archbishop of Canterbury, Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, Episcopal Church, Rowan Williams, Vatican
Transmis : 29 juil. 2009 • Lien permanente : ecumenism.net/?p=594
Catégorie : CNSDans cet article : Anglican, Archbishop of Canterbury, Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, Episcopal Church, Rowan Williams, Vatican

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has awarded the Cross of St Augustine to Monsignor Donald Bolen for his service to Anglican-Roman Catholic relations. In a private audience at Lambeth Palace the Archbishop paid warm tribute to the theological acumen and spiritual discernment that Monsignor Bolen had put unreservedly at the service of Anglican-Roman Catholic relations during his seven-year assignment to the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity in Rome.

… continued
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Posted: Feb. 3, 2009 • Permanent link: ecumenism.net/?p=549
Categories: NewsIn this article: Anglican, Catholic, Donald Bolen, Rowan Williams
Transmis : 3 févr. 2009 • Lien permanente : ecumenism.net/?p=549
Catégorie : NewsDans cet article : Anglican, Catholic, Donald Bolen, Rowan Williams

The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has said greed is the root cause of the current economic crisis and he has called on Christians and Muslims to work together to decide upon a fairer system of borrowing and lending.

“The Christian tradition has always been cautious about interest and for many centuries it was very much of one mind with the Islamic tradition, but after the 16th century that changed,” Williams, the leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, said at a 15 October media conference in London, following a three-day meeting in Cambridge of Christian and Muslim scholars and clerics.
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Posted: Oct. 16, 2008 • Permanent link: ecumenism.net/?p=511
Categories: NewsIn this article: Anglican, Islam, Rowan Williams
Transmis : 16 oct. 2008 • Lien permanente : ecumenism.net/?p=511
Catégorie : NewsDans cet article : Anglican, Islam, Rowan Williams

As the Lambeth Conference of 2008 comes to an end, I want to offer some further reflections of my own on what the bishops gathered in Canterbury have learned and experienced. Those of you who have been present here will be able to share your own insights with your people, but it may be useful for me to add my own perspectives as to where we have been led. For the vast majority of bishops, it seems, this has been a time when they have felt God to have been at work. The Conference was not a time for making new laws or for binding decisions; in spite of the way some have expressed their expectations, Lambeth Conferences have never worked straightforwardly in this way. The Conference Design Group believed strongly that the chief need of our Communion at the moment was the rebuilding of relationships – the rebuilding of trust in one another – and of confidence in our Anglican identity. And it was with this in mind that they planned for a very different sort of Conference, determined to allow every bishop’s voice to be heard and to seek for a final outcome for which the bishops were genuinely able to recognize an authentic account of their own work.
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Posted: Aug. 26, 2008 • Permanent link: ecumenism.net/?p=487
Categories: ACNS, OpinionIn this article: Anglican Communion, Lambeth Conference, Rowan Williams
Transmis : 26 aoüt 2008 • Lien permanente : ecumenism.net/?p=487
Catégorie : ACNS, OpinionDans cet article : Anglican Communion, Lambeth Conference, Rowan Williams

Archbishop of Canterbury responds to GAFCON statement

[ACNS 4417 • Lambeth] The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has responded to the final declaration of the Global Anglican Future Conference with the following statement:

The Final Statement from the GAFCON meeting in Jordan and Jerusalem contains much that is positive and encouraging about the priorities of those who met for prayer and pilgrimage in the last week. The ‘tenets of orthodoxy’ spelled out in the document will be acceptable to and shared by the vast majority of Anglicans in every province, even if there may be differences of emphasis and perspective on some issues. I agree that the Communion needs to be united in its commitments on these matters, and I have no doubt that the Lambeth Conference will wish to affirm all these positive aspects of GAFCON’s deliberations. Despite the claims of some, the conviction of the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as Lord and God and the absolute imperative of evangelism are not in dispute in the common life of the Communion

However, GAFCON’s proposals for the way ahead are problematic in all sorts of ways, and I urge those who have outlined these to think very carefully about the risks entailed.

A ‘Primates’ Council’ which consists only of a self-selected group from among the Primates of the Communion will not pass the test of legitimacy for all in the Communion. And any claim to be free to operate across provincial boundaries is fraught with difficulties, both theological and practical — theological because of our historic commitments to mutual recognition of ministries in the Communion, practical because of the obvious strain of responsibly exercising episcopal or primatial authority across enormous geographical and cultural divides.

Two questions arise at once about what has been proposed. By what authority are Primates deemed acceptable or unacceptable members of any new primatial council? And how is effective discipline to be maintained in a situation of overlapping and competing jurisdictions?

No-one should for a moment impute selfish or malicious motives to those who have offered pastoral oversight to congregations in other provinces; these actions, however we judge them, arise from pastoral and spiritual concern. But one question has repeatedly been raised which is now becoming very serious: how is a bishop or primate in another continent able to discriminate effectively between a genuine crisis of pastoral relationship and theological integrity, and a situation where there are underlying non-theological motivations at work? We have seen instances of intervention in dioceses whose leadership is unquestionably orthodox simply because of local difficulties of a personal and administrative nature. We have also seen instances of clergy disciplined for scandalous behaviour in one jurisdiction accepted in another, apparently without due process. Some other Christian churches have unhappy experience of this problem and it needs to be addressed honestly.

It is not enough to dismiss the existing structures of the Communion. If they are not working effectively, the challenge is to renew them rather than to improvise solutions that may seem to be effective for some in the short term but will continue to create more problems than they solve. This challenge is one of the most significant focuses for the forthcoming Lambeth Conference. One of its major stated aims is to restore and deepen confidence in our Anglican identity. And this task will require all who care as deeply as the authors of the statement say they do about the future of Anglicanism to play their part.

The language of ‘colonialism’ has been freely used of existing patterns. No-one is likely to look back with complacency to the colonial legacy. But emerging from the legacy of colonialism must mean a new co-operation of equals, not a simple reversal of power. If those who speak for GAFCON are willing to share in a genuine renewal of all our patterns of reflection and decision-making in the Communion, they are welcome, especially in the shaping of an effective Covenant for our future together.

I believe that it is wrong to assume we are now so far apart that all those outside the GAFCON network are simply proclaiming another gospel. This is not the case; it is not the experience of millions of faithful and biblically focused Anglicans in every province. What is true is that, on all sides of our controversies, slogans, misrepresentations and caricatures abound. And they need to be challenged in the name of the respect and patience we owe to each other in Jesus Christ.

I have in the past quoted to some in the Communion who would call themselves radical the words of the Apostle in I Cor.11.33: ‘wait for one another’. I would say the same to those in whose name this statement has been issued. An impatience at all costs to clear the Lord’s field of the weeds that may appear among the shoots of true life (Matt.13.29) will put at risk our clarity and effectiveness in communicating just those evangelical and catholic truths which the GAFCON statement presents.

Resources:

• Canadian Primate responds to GAFCON statement
• Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church USA responds to GAFCON statement
• Final declaration of the Global Anglican Future Conference
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Posted: June 30, 2008 • Permanent link: ecumenism.net/?p=476
Categories: NewsIn this article: Anglican, Rowan Williams
Transmis : 30 juin 2008 • Lien permanente : ecumenism.net/?p=476
Catégorie : NewsDans cet article : Anglican, Rowan Williams

A hundred years on from the establishing of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, how much further forward are we? And what exactly are we praying for during this week of prayer? On the whole, it’s become a fixture for most “mainstream” denominations, a few days when the more enthusiastic or more biddable members of the congregation turn up to someone else’s church for a well-mannered but often rather lukewarm joint service or two, or perhaps for a talk by a prominent local leader.

The aspiration that we end up relating better with each other, or even that we end up more willing to engage in witness and work together is entirely worthy, and is probably widely fulfilled. But are we praying for anything more than this?

For some people, the answer is clearly “no”. To look beyond this fostering of local goodwill, they would say, is always in danger of slipping towards the yearning for some universal institution with clear central control – at worst, a Pullmanesque Magisterium, some people’s nightmare of Roman Catholicism.
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Posted: Dec. 22, 2007 • Permanent link: ecumenism.net/?p=6686
Categories: TabletIn this article: Archbishop of Canterbury, Christian unity, Rowan Williams, WPCU
Transmis : 22 déc. 2007 • Lien permanente : ecumenism.net/?p=6686
Catégorie : TabletDans cet article : Archbishop of Canterbury, Christian unity, Rowan Williams, WPCU

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and the governors of the Anglican Centre in Rome are delighted to announce the appointment of the Very Revd David Richardson as the Archbishop’s Representative to the Holy See and Director of the Centre. David Richardson is Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne Australia and was previously Dean of St Peter’s Cathedral, Adelaide. David Richardson succeeds the Right Reverend John Flack, former Suffragan Bishop of Huntingdon, as the Archbishop of Canterbury’s personal representative in the Holy See. Bishop John retires in February. David Richardson will take up his appointment after Easter.
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Posted: Dec. 10, 2007 • Permanent link: ecumenism.net/?p=392
Categories: NewsIn this article: Anglican, Rowan Williams
Transmis : 10 déc. 2007 • Lien permanente : ecumenism.net/?p=392
Catégorie : NewsDans cet article : Anglican, Rowan Williams

When Catholic cardinals meet in conclave they tend to do so under the stern eye of God in the Sistine Chapel. Anglican primates are different; this past week they have been meeting privately in the agreeable surroundings of a beach-front hotel overlooking the shimmering Indian Ocean just outside Dar es Salaam. Where the cardinals have Swiss Guards to protect them, the Anglicans have enjoyed what we journalists took to calling satirically the ring of steel: a group of young askari cadets, dressed in white shirts and black berets, who nervously fingered their truncheons when anyone approached.
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Posted: Feb. 24, 2007 • Permanent link: ecumenism.net/?p=6712
Categories: TabletIn this article: Anglican Communion, Christian unity, human sexuality, Rowan Williams
Transmis : 24 févr. 2007 • Lien permanente : ecumenism.net/?p=6712
Catégorie : TabletDans cet article : Anglican Communion, Christian unity, human sexuality, Rowan Williams

Rather than be split by a much-trumpeted schism,the Anglican Communion emerged from its meeting in Tanzania this week as a new kind of twenty-first century Church, reflecting changes in ecclesial and geopolitical power

Will the Anglican Communion survive? Before the Primates’ Meeting in Africa this week there was much discussion of schism, and an atmosphere of crisis prevailed. At the heart of the problem is how Anglicans reconcile the value they place on diocesan and provincial structure of autonomy at the national level with the legitimacy given to a comprehensive range of practices and positions with the bonds of ecclesial communion that allow the Communion coherence as one effective, united, interdependent worldwide body of Christians. Given that, what does the Anglican Communion mean? Is it a fellowship of independent national churches with historical roots in the Church of England that worship through a provincial expression of the Book of Common Prayer, or is it a hierarchical system with the Archbishop of Canterbury at the top as a sort of mini-Pope?
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Posted: Feb. 24, 2007 • Permanent link: ecumenism.net/?p=6714
Categories: TabletIn this article: Anglican Communion, Christian unity, human sexuality, Rowan Williams
Transmis : 24 févr. 2007 • Lien permanente : ecumenism.net/?p=6714
Catégorie : TabletDans cet article : Anglican Communion, Christian unity, human sexuality, Rowan Williams

On Monday 29 March I left Glasgow for the third Building Bridges seminar convened by the Archbishop of Canterbury and hosted by John J. DeGioia, president of Georgetown University in Washington. A few days earlier, the former Archbishop George Carey, the man responsible for hosting the first of these seminars at Lambeth Palace in 2002, had made front-page headlines after delivering a public lecture in which Islam and Muslims had come under severe criticism over a variety of political and theological issues. “It is sad to relate”, he said, “that no great invention has come for many hundred years from Muslim countries.” “During the past 500 hundred years,” he continued, “critical scholarship [in theology] has declined, leading to strong resistance to modernity.” Dr Carey added that moderate Muslims must “express strongly on behalf of the many millions of their co-religionists, their abhorrence of violence done in the name of Allah.” Much to the dismay of many Muslims and non-Muslims, in subsequent interviews, Dr Carey remained steadfast that he had not meant to offend the Muslim community.
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Posted: Apr. 8, 2004 • Permanent link: ecumenism.net/?p=6674
Categories: TabletIn this article: Archbishop of Canterbury, Christian, Christianity, George Carey, Islam, Rowan Williams
Transmis : 8 avril 2004 • Lien permanente : ecumenism.net/?p=6674
Catégorie : TabletDans cet article : Archbishop of Canterbury, Christian, Christianity, George Carey, Islam, Rowan Williams

A covenant between the Church of England and the Methodist Church of Great Britain was signed on November 1, 2003 at the Methodist Central Hall followed by a Service of Thanksgiving at Westminster Abbey. Dr Williams gave the following address at the signing ceremony.

At his first meeting with leaders of the Jewish community in Rome, Pope John XXIII, it’s said, greeted them with the words, “I am Joseph, your brother”. He was evoking one of the most poignant moments in the Old Testament: Joseph, whose arrogance had provoked the resentment and rejection of his brothers, is carried off into exile and slavery, then rises to great power. He finds that this power is given to him so that he can save the lives of his brothers when they come to him, not knowing him, begging him for help; and at last he reveals who he is: “I am Joseph, your brother”.
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Posted: Nov. 2, 2003 • Permanent link: ecumenism.net/?p=9320
Categories: ACNSIn this article: Anglican, Church of England, covenant, Methodist, Rowan Williams
Transmis : 2 nov. 2003 • Lien permanente : ecumenism.net/?p=9320
Catégorie : ACNSDans cet article : Anglican, Church of England, covenant, Methodist, Rowan Williams