C

C for compassion, p for patience, When God made these he made plenty of them. God is already patient with the human race, we might have to learn the various ways of his compassion. God has to balance the forces of good and the forces of evil at times in order to allow for freedom and yet also variety in his universe, so not easy to know when to intervene, as the noted biblical scholar Dr Bergsma outlines the problem of such cases in his commentary on the figure of the Son of Man or filius hominis in Daniel 7, God as the patient presider over free solar systems. Some bishops genuinely felt that they should not impose the chapter in the old western codes called De sanctionibus, preferring to wait until there was some sign of a conversion, some basis for hope, we cannot blame them for that always when things go wrong, a human sign, as Sir Elton sings it in his song "Sacrifice." It is just that the boys were suffering in the meantime. There is the rub. Caught between the rocks and the open sea, not easy to balance these values. But maybe the said bishop could have gone back to credit control and finance in order to learn the lessons of those workplaces about patience. 

Hmmmmm

Judgement can follow such scandals around. There are two opposite poles of opinion in these debates, on the one hand the idea that one if liberal should not judge as much as possible, while the other pole apart urging some judgement that is severe, while in the middle somewhere civil judges do intervene and opine that any temporal crime of due gravity without legitimate excuse requires some temporal punishment as a sign to others in society of what not to employ one's time in, so that is the overall schema of these debates, ease of judgement vs severity of judgement. The midway course followed by many CoE judges if not most judges is a difficult path to tread in terms of punishment vs remedial care for the miscreant or mishapped individual caught between a rock and a hard place. Bad example though is often not far from the forefront of their minds, and many judges will seek to deter others from following such fatal courses of action. Learned bishops too must consider these roles of the judge, remedial therapy vs temporal punishment, for social sins and crimes in the public and objective order. So on the one hand a judge will try to tease out if there were any mitigating excuses or keyword factors in the offending deportment and also to determine what level of gravity was involved and whether full consent and full freedom were enjoyed in the act, in this case a negative act of not positively doing x or y or z. A curious case. We must abstain from judging this particular cause and recuse from the case, not just because it is an ecclesiastical one that the King might wish to reserve to himself, but also because ratione suspicionis, we esteem the reus and are friendly with the said bishop in question, or ratione amicitiae. Judges can at times recuse. As Lyndsay Graham has pointed out before at senatorial hearings. 

Christ and the Christians

Easy to judge though. And whether we like it or not, we do tend to judge others on the standards of our own comportment, so we can be a little transparent to an experienced eye. Sad business as the Bishop of Newcastle says it all, nice lady, nice to have her on board, a great icon of the luminous. But we shall press on regardless and learn to learn our lessons from such unfortunate events around a cup of Darjeeling. Snow on the ground so tea on the vicarage lawn not a good idea today, so we shall see what the good lady housekeeper if not the wifey has in mind for the cucumber sandwiches.

Ohhhhhh That One

Well actually, or maybe Love Actually, since that seems to be the case since Eton boys are always sweet and kind and nice, because the sweet but maybe foolish old queen, RIP, who passed away before all of this huge but hidden scandal broke, was very keen and indulgent towards those 1970s prelates of the Primus Primatus kind, and regarded them all, Crowmacs of the left included, as personal sing-along friends to be invited to parties at the Castle of Mey in those early years by the then queen mother when she was alive, not daring to look into the crystal ball of the future with so many old guard leftwing radicals of the new kind in high office, while far below them all they were making life difficult for the frontline and frontier troops of the brave and good vicars of those years of the high point of parties at Mey. Luckily the ladies came along after 1992 with the vote to restore the old female ministries of the early Christians under the Magdalene when she was in charge of the health ministry that made the Christians so popular in the first place, and then the ladies took over more and more of the mess that the gray males left behind, that was the official story anyway, with impossibly brave so brave and chaleureuse Anglican lady bishops like the Bishopess of Newcastle pointing out that the Primus just had to go after not reporting again and again a very awful and dreadful case of boy abuse, Eton or no bloody Eton, and bloodied bottoms there were from such disciplinarian evangelicals, where caning was endemic in those bad old years too, like a troubling and sickening episode of Tom Brown's Schooldays, God forbid, can we all recall? Boys are so nice, so brave, and never said a word, as Heinrich would put it so well. Even the angels of imagining and cura animarum got sick of the procrastinations of old Etonians like the big J, the pope in Rome was aghast among the few admirers of the Primus there in Auntie Overseas of BBC-Europa.

Spare

Spare. Prince Harry's biography. Old Etonian. Biographies there are a few. But spare a thought for the outgoing Primus, since in his heyday in the 1970s and 1980s at the Anglican schools of the country, caning was endemic and young boys had to grin and bear it, as per my Anglican schools. Also in those years church figures of the Old Church of England had to face off with society and show a demonstrably compassionate face of Christ as the mild leader to the world, compassion was enjoined on those Etonian boys that joined the Church of England, the Old Church of England that is, it was de riguer, most prelates and prefects had to show such a face. Only in such a grin and bear it atmosphere some of the more primitive evangelicals did try to get under the radar. Dear Primus thought he was being open and inclusive and kind in allowing a Strictnine type into the system, especially as boys were v v brave in those days in and out of public schools. But the leaders who made it to the top were expected to be very liberal, more liberal than Jesus their Master. That was how it was in boys schools. Translate that 30 years on or 40 years on as per Radio 4, and the Primus gets into hot water for: a) not reporting under the terms of the new SGL laws; b) not standing up and being counted as a CPO; c) not deploying the harsh instruments of church anglican canon law on his former advisors and fellow Old Etonians and the like. In the Real Church of England though, it is otherwise. We deploy the corkscrews.

Aha - Synodalitas

Aha - Synods, there we are, mulling over the data from General Synod, good to be on the system again and downloading the latest goss from the Real Church of England, even if in the Old Church of England we are embattled of late a bit, much, by the much anticipated but still surprising resignation of the hapless Arch, the Primus Primate, for all his pains and agonies of high office, but that is the rough and the smooth though, it comes to us all in the higher echelons even of churches and charities, that we have to take the buck when it is passed to us, whatever about guilt or innocence of a personal kind, but especially if subalterns do act the maggot.