Rome and Canterbury

On page 3 of the New York Times on Wednesday of last week was a curious positioning of two articles in the layout of the paper. The left column was the piece on the election of Rowan Williams as the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury.

Beside the article was the carryover of the front-page article on the pope's visit to Toronto. Once again, Rome and Canterbury are joined in print, but not in practice.

Even more amusing is that an official congratulatory message was sent to Archbishop Williams from the pope. His Holiness commented on the great relationship he had enjoyed with the previous archbishops. Relationships are one thing. Unity, however, is another thing.

Archbishop Williams is seen as a radically progressive leader in pro-gay and women's ordination. He is critical of the militaristic stance of the United States. He is intelligent and enlightened.

Perhaps, our church will be looking to a new leader during the tenure of Archbishop Williams. The rumbling about the pope resigning is gaining some momentum now that even Cardinal Ratzinger is in the rumor mill.

Apparently, there is much discussion in curial haunts about the impossible situation the Church would face if John Paul II would seep into a coma-not die-leaving the Church leaderless for only God knows how long.

This concern is serious, as my "source close to the Vatican" reports.

Sometimes I think the breach between Rome and Canterbury is irreconcilable. The theology and rituals are very similar, but the sociologies are disparate. It might be a better experiment to bring American Catholics and American Episcopalians together to work out the dogma stuff while we worship together for a while.

We are all pretty much middle class, a committed people to the Gospel. We like to sing and feel strongly about social justice. We also get outraged when our bishops do dumb things. The conservative Episcopalians have been quick to attack the Episcopalian hierarchy on many issues.

We have expressed our outrage over the sex scandals with strong vox populi/vox Dei maneuvers. Just look at Boston with the tea bags in the collection baskets and the 4,000 plus membership of VOTF-Voice of the Faithful.

It seems like a good fit. To make it even tighter, let's invite the Lutherans, since their merger with Episcopalians appears to be successful.

We should, however, let the church musicians run it We've been sharing like repertory for years. We've been substituting at each other's churches to play for worship services for years. There are even joint meetings of the AGO and the NPM. Of course, many times the NPM members sit with other NPM members and the AGO sit with other AGO members, but we do gather for the concert or worship experience segment of the evening.

Well, the pope is still alive. Archbishop Williams is yet to be enthroned. The only thing left to do is to sing. Does anyone know a good Joan Chittester text set to a good Lutheran chorale arranged by Gerre Hancock?

You can reach Fred Moleck via email at fmoleck@earthlink.net