Members of the Crown Nominations Commission, which includes Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, rejected calls for Dr Jeffrey John to be made the next Bishop of Southwark.
The Dean of St Albans, who is in a civil partnership with another priest, was on the shortlist for the post and was considered to be a front-runner for the job.
And that is how to exercise gracious restraint!
What the heck is going on with the Crown Nominations Commission leaking its decisions immediately that they are made?
I was going to say that if Johns got to be a bishop then there is nothing at all that the ABC should ever object to about TEC. Perhaps some consistency is the order of the day.
You’d think Rev. Johns would tire of being thrown under the bus
by the CofE. Bangor. Reading. Monmouth. And now Southwark.
Shot down every time his name is put forward. He must be feeling as
though he’s the main character in an ecclesiastical version of
“Whac-A-Mole”.
And so ends the mischievous non-story of the week.
Secret meeting in Stepney!! This has become an Ealing comedy.
[This and subsequent comments relating to it have been deleted – Elf]
I presume that senior priest is intimate with Archbishop Hope’s life, or is merely indulging in gossip?
No, he himself declared his homosexual orientation. It was in all the papers at the time. However, his declaration of celibacy was generally accepted as completely honest and forthright.
Bishop Hope in the London Daily Telegraph, 5 December 2004:
“At the end of the day, what is the business of the church? It’s about bringing people to Jesus Christ and about living the life of Jesus Christ. Whatever the divisions, those are the key issues.
“The infighting puts off both young and old people. If it [the Church of England] doesn’t see this in a much larger context of the whole Christian doctrine of creation, redemption and sanctification, it will allow itself to implode on these two issues. We need to turn ourselves outwards.
“If you go to a hospice where they’re working with the dying, they’re not asking you whether you’re in favour of women bishops or whether you’re gay or any of this, that or the other. The important thing is that the work of the persons there actually engages.”
When asked about his own sexuality, Dr Hope reiterated the explanation that he gave as Bishop of London in 1995 to the gay rights activist, Peter Tatchell, that it was “a grey area”. “I made the point very clearly then,” he said. “I continue to live by that. I’m not going to say anything further.”
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I am surprised at how many news sources mentioned Rev. Johns as potential turning point in this whole controversy. There have been plenty of homosexual Anglican Bishops throughout history (although their presence is coded the further back you go, and the further back you go the term “homosexual” becomes less and less accurate) and there are a handful right now in various stages of closeted/admitted but celibate/practicing but discreet.
British version of Ground Hog Day.
The Times this morning tells of +++Rowan losing his cool over the initial leak. I think that this is a wise decision given that the worldwide reaction would have made the recent resignations from the ACC Standing Committee look very minor. Thank God for a sense of right and wrong and the effect it would have had.
Would that they had actually given public loyalty to the Scriptures.
And well he may have been annoyed. The members of the Crown commission take a secrecy oath. Now it is possible that all this began with someone saying to a reporter that they had submitted Dr. John’s name, which of course doesn’t mean that the nomination was either accepted or shortlisted. If John’s name was under consideration and was leaked, then there was a serious violation of the oath taken.
Or, perhaps this had nothing to do with Jeffrey John … and was, from start to finish, an attack on Rowan Williams … payback for 2003, payback for KJS’s humiliation at Southwark Cathedral, and a shot across the bow over his proposed intervention on behalf of traditionalists in the women bishops debate in the CoE.
I agree George, and also wonder when the so called liberal side realises that they are just using people like JJ. Southwark is now an epicenter for advocacy. Notice how in the sixties civil-rights advocacy came with paying a price. Now no one gets hurt (except for beheaded Ugandans who turn out not to be gay; or Jeffrey John ‘one more time’ for the cause). There is an obvious linkage between the PB and Slee, and the enemy is RDW.
Should Jeffrey John forget about ever becoming a bishop? The answer is probably ‘yes.’
Exactly, George and cseitz. When I first read the initial reports, I didn’t think it made one bit of sense and figured TEC’s fingerprints were all over it, which I still believe. +KJS’s UK/Canadian tour was designed to make mischief and I think this was part of the scheming.
I feel rather sorry for Jeffrey John as I think he’s being used and it doesn’t seem as though he has much of VGR’s activist ambitions.
to No 4. The Whac-a-mole who doesn’t want to keep getting whacked, he need but cease popping up.
If he was popped up by others, just so he could be whacked down, he might feel that those who popped him up need to be exposed and whacked themselves, in which case I agree with him. Unless he likes being the poster boy for CofE “exclusion and persecution”…
Fr Yousuf
Dr. Cseitz, they MUST us people like JJ because they need willing pawns – one remembers their use of a pawn in Roe Vs Wade and its ironic result. The pawn is a throwaway. The left looks for an opening which culture or law is likely to support; they bring a case; if they win, one more tie with a continuous past has been broken and their power is advanced proportionately. Enough wins and the left becomes a broker of social contracts of every sort. This kind of power uses this means test: Can we force people to swallow what they would never swallow on their own? If the answer is Yes, then the left’s future success is assured. And so far, this is precisely what has happened.
Larry
The Guardian has published a blog by the Suffragan Bishop of Croydon (within the Southwark diocese ) which demolishes the Telegraph story:http://networkedblogs.com/5CO3W
I agree with Dr. Seitz, Fr. Conger, and teatime that you can smell the agenda. Perverse tactics, with Mr. John as a pawn, too…”Hell hath no fury” though, right?!!
Carrying that mitre under her arm? I wish someone had the power to take it away from her. The self-serving antics disgust me.