This is utterly fascinating.

The ABC sounds like he’s attempting to scold children—but mainly that he’s po’d and distracting himself from that anger by the scolding and hectoring.

And then he has the amusing audacity to assert that those who do not have trust should not *act upon the fact that they do not trust* but instead “build trust”!

I don’t think that we build trust very effectively by acting on the assumption of suspicion.

Anybody know anything about the back story on this?

Also—thank you so much to whomever transcribed this.  Yeoman’s work!

Trust is a major issue in all contemporary social structures. The news that the Presiding Bishop when she was a diocesan bishop accepted a former Roman Catholic priest with a history of sexual abuse of at least one minor, given that all the canonical requirements were met, and given that by all reports he did not offend again in the ministry of this church, but combined with her silence since, does not increase trust in her, or her office, or the process.  Half the parishes I know of in the Episcopal Church have had to deal with serious misconduct by clergy or lay parish leadership.

The Bishop of Dover is a suffragan of the ABC. Perhaps, and I know nothing, there was a desire not to give (or be seen to give?) the ABC more influence over the business of Synod?

Following a link from here might help perhaps

http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/archives/005078.html

Trust is not built. Trust is earned.

#1/2 Sarah
It is not only fascinating, it is extraordinary.  The Audio [first five minutes] just has to be listened to, to be believed.  The holy desert father mask drops, and you see perhaps the real man, and it is not a pretty sight at all.

As far as background goes, there was resistance from the laity in the February Synod to having appointments just foisted on them: +Dover first time and Dr Priscilla Chadwick.  As +Broadbent says in the link provided by #5 there is no precedent or intention that the Chairmanship of the Business Committeee should be held by a bishop, much less Rowan’s suffragan.

I don’t know what went on this Synod “in the darkness” but it seems to me that there is a battle going on about Synod quite rightly resisting the control-freakery of the Archbishop and those around him and refusing to become an Indaba-emasculated council of advice to the ABC, to be heeded or not at Rowan’s whim, just like the old Supreme Soviet.    It is a great pity the Primates who attended Dublin were not on the ball enough when Rowan pulled a similar fast one on them and got them to agree to neuter themselves to just advising him.

I don’t think it is anything to do with incapacity, effectiveness or integrity of bishops as the ABC tries to cast it in his hectoring rant, but everything to do with Synod’s rejection of him appointing Trevor Willmott as his suffragan and then through his influence on the Archbishops’ Council and with the HOB trying to get him placed in charge of the key Business Committee of Synod.  It is obvious to anyone that there is a problem of both a conflict of interest and centralisation of power in Rowan in what Synod refused quite rightly to endorse.

I do not support unkindness at all, but Rowan put +Dover in this position, got caught pulling a fast one by Synod, and I think that explains this intemperate rant at Synod and impertinent display of frustration and temper.  I think Rowan got exactly what he deserved.

Thanks yet again Pageantmaster for your measured and insightful comments.

It appears Rowan is copping it from all sides on this one.

And Martin Reynolds, thanks for posting that link in #5.

The more time goes on, the more we see inappropriate fingers in inappropriate pies. 

For one to speak of “building trust” when doing things that are very untrustworthy, one has to be a) stupid; b) thinking he’s too smart by half or “above the rules” or c) unaware that he’s rivaling Maupassant for irony.