Kenneth Kearon: Rowan Williams is fomenting schism
Imagine this situation. A confidential e-mail comes to light, written by the head of the British civil service, which savages Tony Blair's leadership. We would perhaps expect the civil service to have a new head in fairly short order. He would probably take early retirement in order to spend me time with his filing cabinets.
Now consider this. A confidential e-mail comes to light, written by the of the Anglican Communion, which accuses the Archbishop of Canterbury of "fomenting schism" and derides his leadership skills. That e-mail was published in today's Sunday Telegraph.
Canon Ken Kearon, who was still secretary general of the Anglican Communion when I last checked, is the author of the e-mail. He is, ironically enough, a specialist in reconciliation studies who is highly regarded for his diplomatic skills; he's also a priest of the Church of Ireland and the former director of the Irish School of Ecumenics. He's pictured here meeting Pope Benedict in the company of the man he says is inciting division in the Communion, Dr Rowan Williams.
In fact, I got the first with Ken Kearon shortly after his appointment as head of the Communion's permanent secretariat in August 2004. He was in January 2005. I can't imagine that we'll have much luck securing an interview this week.
Comments
In the real world he would have to resign, simple as that. This is the church of england so he probably won't. Then rowan williams will be too weak to sack him. They'll avoid each other for a couple of years.
Sadly, Mark, has a most unfortunate way of characterizing people which I guess we will have to live with - we can now add 'thieves' to that of 'cockroaches'.
I think the use of the words 'trust' and 'Benedict Arnold' are also somewhat misplaced. As I understand it the archbishop was made personally aware of Kearon's views by Kearon prior to the email having been written.
I quote: "In his reply the secretary-general wrote: "Sadly, [Bishop Marshall's criticism] is very accurate, and is almost the script for a very difficult meeting I had with [the archbishop] last Wednesday.""
The fact that a confidential email has become public is not an example of traitorship, though it may source of embarrassment for both parties. But then who amongst us has not had a private conversation relayed to one's chagrin?
Are there any other bloggers who see things this way?
Regards,
Michael
What was he thinking!?!?!? An email!? Everyone knows emails always come back to ruin you life. Poor man. Must be other-worldly. He's done-for.
Michael, I agree that the choice of language by Mark was off the wall; but this email is extremely damaging for Kearon. He has a dysfunctional relationship with +Rowan and I think he'd be advised to seek work elsewhere. Maybe a bishopric in New Hampshire? :-)
I don't think there is a more painful hurt than the hurt that comes from betrayal of those we trust, confide in, think of as our friends. And it could hardly get worse than when that betrayal is public and comes as a complete surprise, a bolt from the blue. In some places in this world, that kind of hurt is considered justification for murder. All that was left out was for Kearon to have nailed his objections to the door of Westminster Abbey.
The email was published first in the Church Times. Funny that the Sunday Telegraph didn't mention this...
In post 3 David (Oxford) wrote:
"this email is extremely damaging for Kearon. He has a dysfunctional relationship with Rowan and I think he'd be advised to seek work elsewhere."
I have a suspicion that he will keep his job and that Williams will be quite forgiving about the email.
Or am I just being too 'Christian'?
Regards,
Michael
Michael #2, I thought you believe in metaphors, that's what you said very clearly. What's the matter, do you find that the metaphor theives for the men of whole cloth is inappropriate? Can you prove that having taken so much money from so many people over so many centuries, that any of them ever got even one soul into heaven? Where I come from, taking money under false pretenses is called thievery, and that's no metaphor, it's a prison sentence.
I just wish Ken Kearon had managed to generated as much interest in what he said when he was lecturing us in Theological College! (Apologies for the blatant name-dropping).
In post #9 Mark wrote:
"Michael I thought you believe in metaphors, that's what you said very clearly. What's the matter....."
Mark:
Nowhere in this thread has there been any mention of church funds and their use or misuse. This is a thread about an email and a 'shism' in the Anglican church. Had that been the point of the discussion a metaphor about 'thieves' could have been appropriate. Even in the post in which you used the word 'thieves' there was no mention of how you were relating that to the misuse of church funds.
I do indeed believe in metaphor which you consistently attempt to disparage. But your use of the word 'thieves' was not metaphorical it was name-calling.
Let us call a spade a spade!
Michael
The writing was on the wall. Now it's on an email message that, AT LAST, lets Rowan know what's ACTUALLY making him numb: his Palace staff.
As for this blogger's rummiations about the relations of power involved... man, aren't you ignorant of how the Anglican Communion works.
So, I'm gonna put this at a 30 years old-level, 'kei?
See, the Archbishop of Canterbury is, like, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Secretary General is, like, the Speaker of Parliament. Got it now?
Can you please show me where it is that *Kenneth Kearon* says that Rowan Williams is "fomenting schism"?
Is it not Bishop Paul Marshall who said that?
What Kearon said was, and he was speaking of Bishop Marshall's article taken as a whole, "Sadly, it鈥檚 very accurate,..."
The CT article is at
The Marshall article is at
When is a metaphor, not a metaphor? When you're talking about the latest scandal to rock the Catholic Church in the United States. There are 19,000 diocese, 70 million members, and collections are estimated at 6 billion dollars a year. Apparantly that's just too much temptation when the only ones watching the till in a lot of cases are just a Priest and a bookkeeper. A recent study just released shows embezzlement is widespread with some diocese having been bilked out of over a million dollars such as one in Bridgeport and one in Florida and another small one in Virginia of over 600,000. Sometimes it's the bookkeeper, sometimes the priest, sometimes both. Sometimes there are no procedures for control, sometimes they aren't implimented.
"Embezzlement in the Catholic Church
A new study by two Villanova professors that set out to learn more about financial management and oversight in the Catholic Church came up with a surprising finding -- embezzlement is a serious problem in many diocese. We talk with the researchers about their work -- CHARLES ZECH, Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for the Study of Church Management and ROBERT WEST, Assistant Professor in the School of Business.
Mon, 29 Jan 2007 15:24:33 EST
Here's the link;
Best guess by these professors is that other religions have the same or worse because the hierarchical nature of the Catholic Church is more likely to catch the embezzlers than other religions.
simon if Kearon writes in agreement with a letter which claims Rowan is fomenting schism, I think it's fair to say that Kearon BELIEVES that Rowan is fomenting schism. You're dancing on the head of a pin to avoid that obvious conclusion.
Leonel:
You're a rude one, I can see, but I'll be kind and not dwell on your spelling of "ruminations".
You say Will's got the wrong analogy and that Chancellor/Speaker is more accurate than Prime Minister/head of civil service.
You're plain wrong about that Leonel. Will's got the exact analogy. the Archbishop of Canterbury (ABC) in Anglican polity is "primus inter pares" - first amongst equals - and is the spiritual leader (not the treasurer) of the Anglican communion. Kenneth Kearon's position is head of the permanent "secretariat", the Communion's central administration. He is certainly not akin to speaker of parliament: he chairs no representative decision making body, as the speaker would do. Instead, his role is to oversee the mechanics of AC administration. He is the head of the communion's "civil service" in effect. He works closely with the ABC and implements the ABC's decisions and the decisions of the communion's other instruments of unity (namely, Lambeth, the Primates meeting and the Ang. consultative council).
You can protest as much as you like, but this email from the head of the permanent secretariat is a massive attack on kearon's boss, the ABC. In the email he agrees with the analysis of Bishop Paul Marshall, who launched an attack on Rowan's leadership in a letter recently. In that letter, marshall says Rowan's lost the plot and making decisions which foment schism. To this kearon says, "it's all sadly very accurate".
Leonel:
You're a rude one, I can see, but I'll be kind and not dwell on your spelling of "ruminations".
You say Will's got the wrong analogy and that Chancellor/Speaker is more accurate than Prime Minister/head of civil service.
You're plain wrong about that Leonel. Will's got the exact analogy. the Archbishop of Canterbury (ABC) in Anglican polity is "primus inter pares" - first amongst equals - and is the spiritual leader (not the treasurer) of the Anglican communion. Kenneth Kearon's position is head of the permanent "secretariat", the Communion's central administration. He is certainly not akin to speaker of parliament: he chairs no representative decision making body, as the speaker would do. Instead, his role is to oversee the mechanics of AC administration. He is the head of the communion's "civil service" in effect. He works closely with the ABC and implements the ABC's decisions and the decisions of the communion's other instruments of unity (namely, Lambeth, the Primates meeting and the Ang. consultative council).
You can protest as much as you like, but this email from the head of the permanent secretariat is a massive attack on kearon's boss, the ABC. In the email he agrees with the analysis of Bishop Paul Marshall, who launched an attack on Rowan's leadership in a letter recently. In that letter, marshall says Rowan's lost the plot and making decisions which foment schism. To this kearon says, "it's all sadly very accurate".
I read the Sunday Telegraph article - no mention of the Church Times exclusive. They should have mentioned it. Stephen Bates from the Guardian was on Sunday Sequence this past week and he mentioned only the Sunday Telegraph's reporting of the letter. Maybe the Telegraph was published BEFORE the Church Times article and the tel got wind of the story??
Post #14 Mark wrote: "When is a metaphor, not a metaphor? When you're talking about the latest scandal to rock the Catholic Church in the United States."
That is not the topic of this tread.
I agree that the use of the word "thieves" in post 1 was name calling as stated in post 11.
Stop the "name calling" and stick to the question under discussion. We all know your views on religions in general and "believers" in particular.
Peace,
Maureen
So Maureen let me see if I understand you. Because we are not discussing the theft of many millions of dollars by Priests from their parishoners and from the Church we can't call them thieves, because we aren't discussing their sexual abuse of young boys we can't refer to them as predatory homosexual pedophiles so what can we call them for the sake of this topic? How about back stabbing Judas Iscariots? So how does this sound, "there is no honor among back stabbing Judas Iscariots?" Hmmmm, does't quite have a poetic ring to it does it? Not fit for poetry in Ireland I suppose. Okay, how would you describe them. BTW, we never did hear your "what I believe in" philosophy of life. What do you believe in anyway, the tooth fairy?
So Maureen let me see if I understand you. Because we are not discussing the theft of many millions of dollars by Priests from their parishoners and from the Church we can't call them thieves, because we aren't discussing their sexual abuse of young boys we can't refer to them as predatory homosexual pedophiles so what can we call them for the sake of this topic? How about back stabbing Judas Iscariots? So how does this sound, "there is no honor among back stabbing Judas Iscariots?" Hmmmm, does't quite have a poetic ring to it does it? Not fit for poetry in Ireland I suppose. Okay, how would you describe them. BTW, we never did hear your "what I believe in" philosophy of life. What do you believe in anyway, the tooth fairy?
Mark:
Apparently you are still struggling with how to choose an appropriate metaphor.
Since this is a thread about 鈥榮chism鈥 and several of us have commented on your misuse of metaphor in this discussion, may I direct you to a book that is about to be published entitled 鈥淢otives for Metaphor in Scientific and Technical Communication鈥 by Timothy D. Giles, ISBN: 0-89503-337-2, Copyright: 2007.
The book will explain to you why one needs to be more alert to the use of metaphor in science as well as in the spiritual arena. I come at it from a little different perspective than Giles but he has some good stuff to say.
Now I realize that every time you have been given a suggestion of something to read you have either 鈥榮canned鈥 it or claimed that you don鈥檛 have the time to be bothered. But we are doing our best to help you with your ignorance on the matter ;-)
Regards,
Michael
ABOUT THE BOOK
Examination of the work of scientific icons-Newton, Descartes, and others-reveals the metaphors and analogies that directed their research and explain their discoveries. Today, scientists tend to balk at the idea of their writing as rhetorical, much less metaphorical. How did this schism over metaphor occur in the scientific community? To establish that scientists should use metaphors to explain science to the public and need to be conscious of how metaphor can be useful to their research, this book examines the controversy over cloning and the lack of a metaphor to explain it to a public fearful of science's power. The disjunction between metaphor and science is traced to the dispensation of the Solar System Analogy in favor of a mathematical model. Arguing that mathematics is metaphorical, the author supports the idea of all language as metaphorical-unlike many rhetoricians and philosophers of science who have proclaimed all language as metaphorical but have allowed a distinction between a metaphorical use of language and a literal use.
For technical communication pedagogy, the implications of this study suggest foregrounding metaphor in textbooks and in the classroom. Though many technical communication textbooks recommend metaphor as a rhetorical strategy, some advise avoiding it, and those that recommend it usually do so in a paragraph or two, with little direction for students on how to recognize metaphors or to how use them. This book provides the impetus for a change in the pedagogical approach to metaphor as a rhetorical tool with epistemological significance.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Timothy D. Giles has been involved in technical communication for more than 20 years. His articles on metaphor and other technical communication topics have appeared in the Journal of Technical Writing & Communication and other publications. He teaches technical communication and other writing courses for Georgia Southern University's Department of Writing and Linguistics. His Ph.D., in Rhetoric, Scientific, and Technical Communication, is from the University of Minnesota, St. Paul, and his M.A., in English, Technical and Professional Writing, is from East Carolina University, where he first began reading about metaphor in scientific and technical communication.
I'm not interested in metaphors in science, IMO metaphors are for poetry and poets. Science has enough problems with definitions being accurate in their denotations. When you get to their most deliberately oblique connotations, they are not applicable. If some scientists use them to explain scientific concepts to non scientists, it's only because that is the best they feel that they can do to communicate with those who cannot grasp the true nature and substance of an idea. It's a poor substitute IMO.
Is mathematics a metaphor for science? Only if you are writing a book to rationalize the use of other metaphors in science as well. Once you take that first step down the slippery slope of falsity, the rest of the way comes easily. Mathematical modeling is the best definitional means to explain the physical world we have. It is the most explicit denotation we can devise. If a better one came along, mathematics would be history. That's how science works, it has no shiboleths, no taboos, no sacred cows the way religion does. The second law of thermodynamics is not a worded statement about chaos and disorder, it is a mathematical equation. All of the words about it are just human interpretations of it to try to put it in a more familiar context we can relate to. Some physical laws don't have familiar contexts...like the theory of relativity. Nobody can actually relate to traveling at the speed of light or alterations in time, space, and mass resulting from speeds approaching it. No human has ever experienced it. They remain pure fantasy, the substance of fictional movies and novels.
When is a metaphor not a metaphor? When it denotes rather than connotes. When it explicity calls a priest who steals money from the church for his own personal use a thief, just as anyone else who steals something which doesn't belong to him would be called a thief. What a timely coincidence for that story to come out just as I thought it was only a metaphor. How much less of a metaphor and an actual accurate definition for some priests it was than I could have guessed. So what do you think you would be called if you got caught stealing a million dollars?
I don't know where you find the time to read all of these books but if I did have the time, this would be near the bottom of a very long list for me.