Saturday, July 12, 2008

Dr Rowan Williams: Robust in the face of torment

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2298669/Dr-Rowan-Williams-Robust-in-the-face-of-torment.html

[Telegraph] 12 Jul 2008--If we were to compare our Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, with a character from a nineteenth-century novel, in the manner of Gordon Brown’s dubious association with Heathcliff, who might fit the bill?

The wise and venerable Bishop Grantly perhaps? Anthony Trollope’s gentle and kind character from The Warden is considerably older than Dr Williams, but is “opposed by every feeling to authoritative demonstrations and episcopal ostentation.”

Sounds about right. Not so long ago, he would have been compared more readily with the ineffectual Septimus Harding from the same novel.

But Dr Williams’ stock has risen lately, even as attacks from those who should be his friends have intensified. He is about as far from Stalinesque control-freakery as it is possible to get, but we should nevertheless note his transformation from Mr Bean to, say, Mr Mandela.

Unholy alliance...! Pleeeeezzz!!

1 comment:

Dr. Mabuse said...

'Our' archbishop? As in, 'The Telegraph's' archbishop? Or has the coy American homosexual endearment (Our Katharine, Our Gene) crossed the Atlantic?