What is in Kelvin's Head?

The Bishop of St Davids and the Archbishop of Canterbury

19/06/2021

The Rt Rev Dr Joanna Penberthy is the 129th Bishop of St Davids. In tweets that came to light recently, she exhibited an antipathy to members of the Conservative Party which did not sit well with her position. “Never, never, never trust a Tory” is not what people expect to see a bishop tweeting.

Once these tweets came to light, there was a considerable brouhaha which seemed to die down when she apologised and deleted her twitter account.

Now, I happen to think that Bishop Joanna’s tweets were not compatible with her role. I work in a congregation which has political activists in it from time to time of all persuasions and I have had no trouble working and worshipping with them all. I think that she was right to apologise and to make sure that the tweets in question were removed from view.

One does not need to go very far to realise that I do not have much truck with the policies of the Conservative Party. I have, after all, stood against Tory candidates in several elections. I am fairly obviously of the view that engagement with public political discourse is appropriate (if indeed not sometimes necessary) for those who hold prominent positions within the churches. As it happens, I am now a floating voter and not a member of a political party though I do strongly encourage others who are members of political parties to engage fully with them.

One of my frustrations about the manner in which Bishop Joanna has expressed herself is that she will now find it very difficult to comment negatively on that which should legitimately be criticised about government policy.

Policy is the key to the nature of appropriate political discourse I think. For my money, it is generally fair enough to criticise policy and generally not OK to criticise someone’s personality or core identity.

So, for example, my view is that it is legitimate to criticise this government’s manufactured hostile environment towards refugees (and now, it seems, all those trying to settle in this country). That policy is cruel. I would go so far as to say it is unchristian. Indeed, I have gone so far as to say such things, from the pulpit, in the newspapers and online.

I have little doubt that Bishop Joanna would agree with me. However, she is now so far on the back-foot that she will struggle to be able to articulate any coherent opposition to wicked government policies for a very long time.

Bishop Joanna did get it wrong. However, she did apologise and sought to make amends. Though I think it will be hard for her to do so, I hope that she is back on social media soon and that she will be able to make her points in ways that hit home and which do not lead to her being silenced.

Now, all this would have been fading away, had not the Archbishop of Canterbury interfered in the matter. It is reported today that he has written to the Secretary of State for Wales expressing the view that he was “truly sorry” for Bishop Joanna’s comments.

This has now led, very rightly, to outrage being expressed online about the Archbishop of Canterbury interfering in a matter about which he has no jurisdiction. He has no business apologising for what bishops in Wales say in public.

Apart from anything else, no archbishop is going to survive the mental gymnastics required if they hold themselves responsible for what every bishop in the Anglican world thinks or says.

The complaint will now be made by some that people are focussing on Archbishop Justin’s comments and forgetting about the “offence” of Bishop Joanna’s comments.

And that is, quite rightly, exactly what people are doing.

Bishop Joanna and the Archbishop of Canterbury have both made statements which are incompatible with their office.

Bishop Joanna has apologised and those who do have jurisdiction in this matter seem to think that her apology is sincere. Her twitter sins should be forgiven. Archbishop Justin has not apologised for his comments.

The more he intervenes in the running of other provinces, the more difficult his job becomes.

The Archbishop of Canterbury hath, as the badge says, no jurisdiction in this Realm of Scotland. The Archbishop of Canterbury hath no jurisdiction in this matter in the Realm of Wales either.

5 responses to “Tanzania”

Raspberry Rabbit

31/01/2007

A bit picky, yes. Idris will no doubt correct them when he’s there.

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Simon Sarmiento

01/02/2007

Umm. So Northern Ireland is part of Britain is it?
Four churches in the UK maybe.

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kelvin

01/02/2007

Well Simon, you are correct in your assumption that I was thinking of the Church of Ireland in Northern Ireland, rather than perhaps the Church of Rockall.

People who are being picky deserve to be picked up for slack talk. However, speaking as I do from the Second City of Empire, I hide behind this quote on the website for Number 10 Downing Street:

http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page823.asp

“The United Kingdom is made up of four countries: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Its full name is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Great Britain, however, comprises only England, Scotland and Wales. Great Britain is the largest island of the British Isles. Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic form the second largest island.

The UK is just under 1,000 km long from the south coast of England to the extreme north of Scotland, and is 500 km across at its widest point. It shares a single land border with the Irish Republic. Despite its relatively small size the UK boasts incredibly varied and often very beautiful scenery.

The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands are not part of the United Kingdom. They are largely self-governing with their own legislative assemblies and systems of law. But the British Government is responsible for their defence and international relations.

On this site the term ‘Britain’ is used informally to mean the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.”

I’d also refer interested parties to the Wikipedia page on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Isles_naming_dispute

I offer this topic as a free gift to Bishop David.

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Bishop David

03/02/2007

As you would expect, I am all knotted up on this one. I am a citizen of Ireland – or the Irish Republic – or the Republic of Ireland. Nor Eire – or, as many of my parishioners in Portadown would have called it [never having moved on from 1922], the ‘Free State’. Meanwhile President Mary MacAleese is often termed President of Ireland which seems to me to be as notable a piece of ‘overlooking’ as when Ian Paisley refers to the ‘people of Ulster’ [which means some of the Protestant/Unionist population of Northern Ireland] and Gerry Adams refers to the ‘Irish People’ [which means not the Protestant/Unionist population of Northern Ireland]. I like Wiki’s rather coy description of Ireland as ‘currently split’ – meaning just the most recent 85 years. Which in the context of thousands of years of British misrule in Ireland is but a blink. And finally one comes to the interesting use of the term ‘mainland’ …

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steg

04/02/2007

Must admit when I saw you were writing about primates in Tanzania I thought your blog was going to be about ape conservation………………….

In my experience people from outwith the UK confuse Britain and England a lot. And they have a point. Do you always refer to the Netherlands or sometimes to Holland even when you are refering to the non Holland bits of the Netherlands? And how do you think that makes the Friesian’s feel? And so on.

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