Abp Carey Visits R.I. Parish

From The Providence Jornal:

Former Anglican prelate visits Wickford

By Richard C. Dujardin

Journal Religion Writer

George Carey, who as the archbishop of Canterbury oversaw the worldwide Anglican Communion for nine years, until 2002, speaks in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church parish hall, in North Kingstown, yesterday morning.

NORTH KINGSTOWN — Anglican Archbishop George Carey, the former archbishop of Canterbury, told a gathering at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church yesterday that it is “pretty obvious” the 78-million-member body is deeply divided over the issue of homosexuality, and it is “terribly important that we pray for the unity of the church.”

Archbishop Carey stepped down as the primate of All England and titular leader of the worldwide communion in 2002, a year before the U.S. Episcopal Church’s General Convention authorized the ordination of V. Gene Robinson, who is gay, as the bishop of New Hampshire. Archbishop Carey was in North Kingstown to take part in the local church’s celebration of its 300th anniversary.

He said yesterday that the continuing conflict over Bishop Robinson’s ordination and concerning same-sex relationships could seriously weaken all the churches in the communion, not only those in Africa and other parts of the developing world that view the ordination as a violation of the Gospel but those U.S. churches that supported the New Hampshire ordination.

“I know there are some clergy who say they don’t care whether the Anglican Communion stays together or not. But they should care,” he said.

“If the Anglican Communion separates, or if the Lambeth Conference [the once-every-10-year gathering of the world’s Anglican bishops, slated for next year] doesn’t happen or happens with a reduced number of bishops,” he said, there will be “a chasm between the developing world, where Christianity is strong and growing, and us on the Western side. That growing church will be weakened because they will not have access to our strength, and West will be weakened because we will not have the exciting stories of their faith and what God is doing.”

Archbishop Carey, 71, came out of the evangelical wing of the Church of England when the late Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher recommended to Queen Elizabeth II that she appoint him archbishop of Canterbury. In the early 1970s, he taught at St. John’s Seminary, in Nottingham, England, where one of his students was a young American, Philip Tierney, now the rector of St. Paul’s.

During a lecture yesterday in the parish hall, the archbishop recalled that Father Tierney, during a student Christmas party, joining others in an impersonation of the rock group the Monkees.

“No, we were pretending to be the Beach Boys,” the rector interrupted.

“Well,” the archbishop quipped, “You looked like monkeys.”

In the lecture and two sermons yesterday morning, as well as in an interview, the retired prelate touched on a number of topics, including his relations with the late Pope John Paul II, his assessment of Pope Benedict XVI, the difficulties in the Middle East, and the challenges brought on by Islam.

He said he met John Paul roughly eight times, once in which the pope invited him to bring his cope and miter. What the pope was signaling, he said, was that “I should come as a bishop” — particularly interesting because the Vatican has never recognized the validity of Anglican orders.

The Roman Catholic Church, he said, “focuses a lot on symbols, not so much on statements, and here on the level of symbol Rome was saying that the Anglican Communion is an important part of the Christian world.”

The archbishop said he knew Pope Benedict, formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, in his role as head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.

“He doesn’t have the charisma of his predecessor, but he has immense intellectual gifts. I must say unity with the Anglican Communion is not on the top of his priorities,” the archbishop said. “But there is no reason why it should be when he looks at the state we are in. We are not in any condition to be united to at the present time until we sort ourselves out.”

The archbishop, who is chairman of the Anglican Church’s Fellowship of Reconciliation in the Middle East, is always looking to create new opportunities for the West and Islam to understand each other. But it is not easy, he said, because while Islam is essentially a peaceful religion, some of the verses in the Koran lend themselves to violence and hatred of others, Christians and Jews particularly.

“I got into trouble three years ago by saying that what Islam needs is a new theological method, to look critically at statements in the Koran so that the greater number of peaceful verses can dominate and lead to fresh interpretations,” he said.

In the Middle East, the people who are suffering most now, he said, are the Palestinians, and he believes Christians should pray that the United States should “lean on” Israel to alleviate the terrible situation facing Palestinians, particularly those living in Gaza.

While the grounds for invading Iraq — its alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction — proved unfounded, he said, the coalition forces cannot simply leave. “We must not abandon the Iraqis, because we know al-Qaida and other extremist groups are looking for an opportunity to get in.”

And there is another reason for opposing Muslim extremism, in Carey’s view: the rise of militant secularism in Europe, which he asserted is largely a response to “intolerant religion” as displayed by Muslim fundamentalists.

The archbishop will deliver his final talk of his weekend visit tonight at 7:30 in St. Paul’s parish hall, 55 Main St., Wickford. His theme: “How to be Infectious Christians in a Culture Immunized against It.”