Contrary to what many believe, life in the big bed at Lambeth is more than just one long game of pup-tent. No matter how luxuriantly one’s beard and eyebrows might grow, the cold hard facts of mammon remain. And the truth is that the feeding and maintenance of Primates doesn’t come cheaply.
The expenses don’t just come flooding in when all the gang brings their underlings around for the big sleep-over every ten years, there’s also the tab for all the other play-dates. Nor are we just talking about accommodation and cornflakes for everyone and their retinues; from communications to coloring-books (the evangelicals need something to keep them entertained when the conversation turns adult), there’s a thousand-and-one costs that all add up. I’ll bet that during the past Lambeth alone several cheeky lads-in-purple managed to run up charges large enough to make Donald Trump stammer (and we’re talking about someone who can afford to keep Miss California in breasts nature never intended here) while indulging in a little phone-indaba with sweet and lovely young things who charge by the minute.
Then there’s just the everyday cost of keeping track of all 38 big monkeys: each has their own special set of issues, questions and general quirks that all need to be monitored: and just if you think keeping up with your daily blogroll is hard work, just imagine what it would be like if you needed advice from a canon lawyer before leaving a comment on that post your friend has made about a really funny piece of toast with the Virgin Mary (or is it a walrus and a sexually aroused pelican?) mysteriously burned into one side.
No, provinces don’t only create work, they create expense. Some of the money for this cost comes from the Provinces that comprise the Communion – and three guesses which one is the biggest donor?
Ok, anyone who suggested Archbishop Kolini’s Province of Rwanda – we have people who are ready to pray for you. Archbishop Venalballs and the southern Cone? Ask the evangelicals nicely and I’m sure they’ll share the colored pencils with you. Little Stephen Than Myint Oo from Burma? I don’t think so – he’s currently much too busy cowardly not saying anything in defence of Aung San Suu Kyi to worry about how ++Rowan puts marmalade on the table.
Those of you who answered the wicked godless apostate liberal equality-loving ECUSA - you’re right! So now can anyone please give one logical reason why any Archbishop of Canterbury would give their assent to a split which could effectively rip the carpet out from under Canterbury’s biggest underwriter? Doing so would surely stand as incontrovertible proof that the Grand Tufti has lost not only his marbles, but also his ancient Celtic dominos and the charming cut-glass peep stones I sold him while pretending to channel the spirit of Joseph Smith. Which in itself proves he might be silly – but not that silly.
I’m Father Christian and I teach the Bible.
3 comments :
Hmm two reasons actually.
First simple misunderstanding. The Grand Tufti has been able to bully TEC from time to time and he probably thinks he can do it some more. Wrong. TEC is about fed up, and frankly its primate's membership card in the big tent is not all that important to the laity.
The other reason is he really does not like democracies. His whole speech to the bishops can be summed up in the silly advice George III got from his mom "George BE KING." That went rather badly in 1776 but that is something they do not seem to cover in Welsh schools.
I predict storms.
FWIW
jimB
My dear man - of course there'll be storms. I also predict there'll be a fortune to be made by selling umbrellas, but that doesn't mean there's any reason to think Bobby Duncan's weather-girls are still going to be around when it finally clears up again.
The Tufti will try to bully because that's what people in big hats do. He'll try all sorts of other tactics as well, including keeping everyone talking until they fall asleep, but at the end of the day the machine that is Canterbury will follow the money, because that's ultimately all machines know how to do.
You're quite right about ++Rowan's dislike of democracy. Partly it's because he blames people with silly ideas of equality for the death of Czar Nicholas, and still dreams of appearing at the court of St. Petersburg as a wise and holy seer from across the waters, but also because it's trait quite prevalent among British who've benefited as he has from the old-boy's network.
Still, as I've already said, those castles, conferences and curios cost a lot to maintain, and he knows he needs TEC more than they need him - even if you'll never catch him admitting that in public. Nor can he afford for the Communion to not have a hierarchical framework: the people who gave him his job didn't do so in order to be reduced to the same status as everyone else.
"the people who gave him his job didn't do so in order to be reduced to the same status as everyone else."
From your keyboard to God's monitor! Yes indeed.
At New Orleans, he showed up to instruct our HoB on how to be bishops! He actually had missed the little point that no one here (except Mr. Duncan and Mr. Mimms) wants English episcopate over-lords. Actually to be fair, they don't want to live under it, they want to operate the house of lords episcopate.
I suppose that the bigger item is the silly province idea. After all what our terrorist bishops want to do to us here is what the FIF sort want to do to the CoE. Buy one: own both.
FWIW
jimB
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