Rowan turns rough

From The London Guardian-

So, here's the scenario. Rowan Williams, just turned 60, eight years into the job at Canterbury, decides, at long last, to start throwing his weight around. People are always grumbling about the need for some strong leadership, so, right, he says, let's give it a go.

First, he gives a kick up the backside to the Anglican Covenant, the first-ever constitution for the worldwide Anglican Communion, designed to define what the Church is for, and how it should hold together. It's like introducing the rules of football 100 years after the start of international tournaments. According to the Covenant text, part of what holds the Communion together is the knowledge that, if a province, let's say, oh, I don't know, the United States, decides to introduce a theological innovation, let's say, um, gay bishops, the rest of the Communion can acknowledge that province's decision to walk apart, i.e. tell it to get stuffed.

For a while, the Covenant stuff was all "in the fullness of time", as each province slowly worked itself round to debating it internally. The result is that only Mexico has so far adopted it: what you might call a low-key start. The conservatives in Africa and the US have been getting impatient, because until the Covenant is ratified, there is nothing to beat the Episcopal Church in the US over the head with. So, in his Pentecost Letter in May, New Rowan ruled that anybody from a province that appears to be erring, e.g. the US and Canada, should be thrown off the Communion's central committees. More than this, he actually set about doing it.

More here-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/05/religion-rowan-anglicanism-schism