Lambeth Diary:church suffering 'spiritual Alzheimers' says Rome

Cardinal Ivan Dias, Prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for Evangelisation, has just addressed the Lambeth Conference bishops. This cardinal is understood to be one of those favouring a positive reception for disaffected Anglicans. This is what he told the 650 bishops: 'Much is spoken today of diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. By analogy, their symptoms can, at times, be found even in our own Christian communities. For example, when we live myopically in the fleeting present, oblivious of our past heritage and apostolic traditions, we could well be suffering from spiritual Alzheimer's. And when we behave in a disorderly manner, going whimsically our own way without any co-ordination with the head or the other members of our community, it could be ecclesial Parkinson's.'

Now which provinces can he possibly be referring to? It's there in my mind somewhere. No. It's gone. I've clean forgotten. I'm getting too old for this job. It's late in the day, and the lights are going out over Canterbury. Good night. Tomorrow is another day! See our online news report of his address here.

Read the full address here . Damian's blog is good for a conservative Catholic take on it all.

Photos George Conger, who says the top one reminds him of a Leonardo portrait of one of the disciples.

Read my story today on how the Indaba process is working, and a humorous take on the process here. And as a completely irrelevant aside, thank you Matt Kennedy for making me laugh this morning, and welcome to England. Come and have a dip in our icy English swimming pool. Cya ltr!

Comments

[Lapinbizarre]

On an immediately adjacent thread, Merseymike comments "A bit of a cheek for anyone in Sudan, of all places, to tell the US how to run its affairs". A bit of a cheek also for the RC Church to point the finger at others on charges of "spiritual Alzheimer's" and "ecclesial Parkinson's".

[Shaun Clarkson]

'Lameth'? Tiredness or freudian slip?
(And if you're quite understandably knackered already I dread to think how you'll be this time next week! - Keep up the good work Ruth, we do appreciate it!)

[Father Ed Tomlinson]

Brillaint! Surely NOW the C of E must stop and think about its course? The liberal experiment is surely over..it led to pain and dysfunction. The recent treatment of faithful priests who cannot in conscience accept women bishops says it all. The Anglican church really has lost its marbles.

[Lawrence]

As a child psychiatrist, I'd be more worried about spiritual autism, with severe difficulties in using language to communicate with others, a narrow and restricted range of interests, and an inability to maintain social relationships at a developmentally appropriate level. I wager it's more prevalent in the church leadership on all sides than in the pews.

[Ramon Rodriguez]

Amen.

[David Crawford]

Is anyone really listening to what our RC and Orthodox leaders are telling us ? Is anyone really listening to the leader from Sudan ? The TEC agenda is killing people in his country. While Robinson compares his plight to Christ, this leader is expressing real life and death. I was so moved by him and ashamed to be involved in the Episcopal church. The Holy Spirit is really at work and the Bishop of Sudan has all the qualities to be the real ABC. I pray all have ears to hear this man and the country he comes from are certainly in my prayers.He won't be bought by silver or power just the love of Christ.

[David Palmer]

Pretty clear wasn't it, Ruth.

What a shocking start, any chance of a turnaround?

[Fr Mark]

Yes, but Ivan Cardinal Dias thinks the Pope is the head, doesn't he? So his analogy isn't much use to Anglicans, who have rejected that model of governance.

[Michael Stevens]

Wow! That's a pretty full on analogy. Not the most diplomatic way of expressing things but it certainly conveys a message.

[Recusant]

Ruth, I think this finally nails the Tablet and Ecclestone Square spin that the Pope was placing himself in support of the AoC. Dias is Benedict's man and his appointment: C M-O'C and Kasper are not and are both shortly to depart from positions of influence.

[KM]

I'm not sure that Parkinsons and Alzheimer sufferers will be delighted to be compared to the Anglican Communion.
Talk about a sentence of death!

[Merseymike]

We do need to remember that no RC can accept Anglican orders as valid and that their aim is that Anglicans should rejoin the one true church. Thus, this sort of statement requires a wheelbarrow or two of salt.

[Chris Gillibrand]

The Leonardo portrait is of St John Baptist- there is a phrase, I seem to remember- "straight as the Baptist's finger"

[Fr David Heron]

Er..I've forgotten what I was going to say

[Geoffrey Smith]

Cardinal Diaz has made one thing abundantly clear: Pope Benedict has lost all interest in the Anglicans.
As far as he is concerned, it's now the Russian Orthodox or nothing.

[John]

Securus judicat orbis terrarum - the Lambeth Conference has heard it from all around the world: not only the great majority of Anglican primates, including the Abp of Sudan, but from the great Orthodox Churches, and from the Roman Catholic Church. These are fellow Anglicans and ecumenical partners, who all want the Anglican Communion to prosper in mission for Christ's sake.

Has Rowan heard the message? Has he "listened"? Or is he simply going to press on with nebulous obfuscations and delay until the TEC (4% of the Communion) gets its way, and Anglicanism is finished?

"To everything there is a season" and the time now is for discipline, not endless talk. Time to act, not to manufacture sickly fudge.

Send the revisionists home, and let what is left of the Conference spend the remaining time addressing how it can mend the net.

[Fr Mark]

And isn't it a weird analogy to use - wasn't the RC Church governed by an old man with Parkinson's disease just a couple of years ago? Or have we all forgotten already?

[Geoffrey Smith]

I think that photograph of Cardinal Diaz will be on the front page of Private Eye next week. And inside the balloon? No comment.

[Geoffrey Smith]

"We do need to remember that no RC can accept Anglican orders as valid and that their aim is that Anglicans should rejoin the one true church".
- Merseymike, 23 JUL 2008, 10:19:02

I would quibble at your use of the word 'rejoin', Merseymike. Since the Anglicans have never been a part of the one true church, any accession on their part would be joining, not rejoining.

[Peter Morris]

Ah, now I understand. Nothing changes until the Pope says it can change. Nothing changes (vis a vis Sudan) because the 'truth' of Genesis about men and women has been sealed for ever. I'll stop thinking about these things, that's the Anglican tradition? Oh dear.

[baz]

I don't see what the discussions of the Church of England has to do with anyone in the Roman church: this cleric should be told to keep his nose out of our business!

[Antonio]

I have already written this here.
We are entering in a different Ecumenism.
Even Anglican "liberals" should be happy about this.
Rome may be right or wrong, but for all and everywhere, is already time to stop the fudge.
CardinaL Kasper is going to be replaced soon.
Rome is REALLY interested in Anglicanism. The Pope doesn't want to transform Anglicans into Romans. But he wants to have Anglicans in full communion with him and the Church. And that's the real Second Vatican Council!!

[Terry Hamblin]

Why should we take any notice of Cameron Diaz?

[Elizabeth]

@david crawford; "Is anyone really listening to what our RC and Orthodox leaders are telling us ? Is anyone really listening to the leader from Sudan ?"

Can you honestly say, before God, that you are listening to your fellow Christians, who differ from you?

Vanity, self-righteousness; the devil's favourite sins?

[Geoffrey Smith]

"Why should we take any notice of Cameron Diaz?"
- Terry Hamblin, 23 JUL 2008, 20:34:31

A question you should address to Dr Rowan Williams. He's the one who invited the Cardinal to address the conference.

[Robert Ian Williams]

Why couldn't the Cardianl simply have used the analogy from Scripture of the houses
(churches) built on rock and sand.
A medical analogy if appropriate is that the Anglican church was a still birth and dead from its inception, when it finally lobbed its self off from the Catholic Church in 1559.

[Stuart Hartill]

'Spiritual Alzheimers' - is that the Vatican's latest preferred term for getting clergy to bury the evidence on child abuse then?

[Presbyter Mark]

@Elizabeth - striking post @ David Crawford, if not a little ironic. Tempted to say: right back @ you!

[Presbyter Mark]

Ruth, like Cameron Diaz, me thinks the Cardinal thinks there is something about Mary!!

[Chris Gillibrand]

Perhaps the Cardinal had just discovered that an anagram of "Anglican Ecumenism" is "menacing calumnies" and thought he was on to something.

[Chris Gillibrand]

PS
An anagram of Anglican Conference Indaba is

Ignorance Balanced Finance

No surprise there.

[Chris Gillibrand]

PS
An anagram of Anglican Conference Indaba is

Ignorance Balanced Finance

No surprise there.

[Chris Gillibrand]

And a PPS if I may, the Bishop of Ebbsfleet did ask for "gestures from our Catholic friends"- did not take Rome long to respond and in the right direction.

[Malcolm+]

Anagrams for Global Anglican Future include:

Ungrateful Cabal Go Nil