The expenses scandal latest - Rowan Williams weighs in by asking the public to stop humiliating MPs.
You would almost think he was one.
This just gets better and better - card time.
Why this from a senior churchman, who should know the difference between right and wrong?
The Sun - it lays his motivations bare, as someone who is one of the more political Archbishops and one of the most pro-government we've had. I am relying on Owlperson for this reading, and Owlperson has his own views (quite conservative, positively Tory, but who is satisfied he is able to think outside that narrow remit to embrace social change over the past thirty years), but this to Owlie suggests Williams is laying bare a pro-liberal Establishment viewpoint that he has harboured for a while, and particularly since he was elevated to the Archbishopric by, erm, Tony Blair. "Let them eat cake" is not what the public really ought to hear from their senior clergyman, but as a practicing Anglican I am rather upset that our leader should take this stance. At least, however, it exposes where his loyalties lie, and Owlperson adds that he told me - warned me - about this two years ago when he first came into verbal range.
Why now?
The Hierophant (usually the High Priest) - a fitting card. Williams wants to take a stance on the issue, so he has weighed in - on the side which he thinks is morally right and just. Fresh from the controversy over Sharia law that he was embroiled in last year, he thinks he can essentially politicise the role of Archbishop of Canterbury, and feels that he needs to shore up his own office. This is not likely however to go down well; he has made, however, a judgement that this will enhance his position as the High Priest to Gordon Brown's Emperor. Not wise, but not perhaps entirely foolish in his own mind.
What has he to gain from saying this?
IX Wands - defence and defending his own "flock", but also the support of the Establishment when it comes to what he wants. If he defends them, they will defend him. But he appears here defensive - inside the parliamentary stockade rather than outside it where he belongs.
What are the consequences for us?
IX Pentacles - the Church learns to take a more critical and self-reliant standpoint as Williams shows his true colours. As an Anglican myself I find a churchman defending the greedy and obscene more than I can take. No matter - it furthers the cause of disestablishment better than anything else if its head is prepared to defend the indefensible. If Dr Williams thinks that we - the public, and by proxy the press who revealed this corruption - are undermining democracy, he has firmly left the realm of what the public can expect from a churchman too close to the seat of power and although disestablishment is not currently on the popular agenda, the Nine of Pentacles symbolises self-reliance, and this may indicate that one item on the collective agenda becomes disestablishment of the Church of England.
What are the consequences for him?
IX Swords - A nightmare, quite frankly. This goes beyond what, as a Christian, I can tolerate from someone who preaches humility and Christ-like poverty. We are not the ones undermining democracy. The corrupt, rotten heart of Westminster, not only bent in terms of money but bent in terms of votes (see posts passim) is not worth defending any more, and Williams, by wading into the row on the side of the wrongdoers, may lose more than his parliamentary privilege as an Archbishop of Canterbury. The arrogance of this remark may hasten the advent of disestablishment and it may also claim him as an unwitting victim. Perhaps Dr Williams also has something to hide. No matter, we will see when this comes to a court of law what "blessed are the meek" actually means to him.
On the original Times article I quote above, one of the comments reads:
Is the Archbishop aware of the ten commandments? One that springs to mind is 'thou shalt not steal.'
Says it all really.
