Who thought it was a good idea to be lectured by a clergyman who represents a church that does not recognize Anglican orders as valid? Oh - the ABC I suppose, who secretly wishes he were an RC?

As someone who has friends whose families have been devastated emotionally, spiritually, and, yes, materially by both Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, I found his clever metaphors quite offensive. I suspect my friends who have been touched by these diseases would be badly hurt.

Why pay attention to such an insensitive and arrogant cleric?

I hope if I had been present I would have stood and walked out.

Well said Cynthia Gillat.

I do beleive you would have and I hope I would ahve joined you.

Very offensive to those with the illnesses.

Very offensive to the anglicans churches.

YES ! Who gave him air romm to do such lecturing ?

I think Cardinal Dias's comments were offensive even within his own communion, given that the late Pope was crippled by Parkinson's.

But this does give the lie to the suggestion in the Independent that the Vatican is propping up Williams. Dias is closer to the Holy Father than Kasper or Murphy O'Connor, and favours incorporating the Anglo-Catholics into the Communion.

I note that, out of Cardinal Dias' lengthy and mostly peaceable address, most of the British press as presented on TA appear to snatch the two sentences likely to be perceived as most wounding to Lambeth in particular and Anglicans in general, and then characterizes these two sentences as an attack.

I'm getting a bit fed up with most the British press, actually. It seems that they view their role as finding something every day to be snarky about. And how they love to tell us that the Communion is doomed! Apparently we can expect burnings at the stake any day now...

Well, I suppose it sells newspapers.

Cardinal Dias came as a friend, to try to speak the truth as he saw it. I think his talk was friendly. I didn't agree with all of it, but that's why they make Fords and Chevvies, right? Because people don't always want the same thing?

The personality-driven British news coverage feels very odd. Did somebody - um - ordain these people, or something? How did it get to be all about them?

'Because people don't always want the same thing?'

That comes down to choice and Live and let live.

It's what liberal types have championed all along, Isn't it ?

Yes, we seem to have the press we deserve ....

What I found odd about the cardinal's speech was that in his closing he quoted two people (Newman and Kilmer) who swam the Tiber.

Pamela, the Bishop of Buckingham says something similar about this in a comment added to his own blog at http://bishopalan.blogspot.com/2008/07/o-monstrous-world-dangerous-conceit.html#comment-280535721585015435

"I note that, out of Cardinal Dias' lengthy and mostly peaceable address, most of the British press as presented on TA appear to snatch the two sentences likely to be perceived as most wounding to Lambeth in particular and Anglicans in general, and then characterizes these two sentences as an attack."

Agreed, that journalists will often focus on a provocative quotation in order to attract readers [if it bleeds, it leads].

But try this: "I note that out of Cardinal X's lengthy and mostly peaceable address, the press choose to highlight his characterization of TEC as 'a bunch of retards' whose actions he likened to "some kind of spastics."

To me it IS news when a highly placed RC cleric uses terms like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's in the same cruel and insensitive way.

It is news and it is disgusting.

I agree with Cynthia. I find it amazing that the RC church bashes gays but then how many priest, at least in the American Church, do they think are straight?? The only difference between us ordaining GL people and their ordaining GL people is that we are open about it. Rome denies they have homosexual priest or that they're celibate.
Yeah, right.

On the question of women, the RC church is one of the few groups allowed to practise institutionalized discrimination. They only accept single males. No married males or women need apply (and probably married women, would be the biggest mortal sin).

Shame ABC gave him a captive audience.

My (critical) comments about the Cardinal's address are here: http://www.haloscan.com/comments/terrym/6369087883954851925/#16613

[And I didn't even touch on the "Alzheimer's/Parkinson's" bit! :-0]

Hmm okay, if Diaz is a friend, then as the saying goes ... who needs these odd, strange warnings to Anglicans that we must be careful with modernity lest it cause us to come down with either spiritual Alzheimers or spiritual Parkinsons Disease?

His remarks, his sound bite analogies go way past trendy conservative religious cleverness by half.

The difficulties we are having across our Anglican believer differences are not simplistically due to certain liberal Anglicans rushing to cave in to fashionable modernity. I really see the constant repeats of this sound bite as dastardly falsehoods.

The empirical data behind the changing views of queer folks, for example, are very hard won and often difficult (for serious best practice methodological reasons, as well as other significant reasons, including those hot buttons related to cultural prejudice and to culturally sanctioned violence).

Summarizing all that research as if it were tangential to the issues is manipulative enough, but to go much further so frequently, and summarize the research (not to mention the whole of knowledge and life in our century?) as if it were some trivial cable tv fad from which only strict religion can saved us - well this ploy dumbs down controversial things to the point of absurdist simplifications that must alarm us as Anglicans.

Isn't it interesting that Ruth Gledhill's headline, "Cardinal Ivan Dias: Anglican Church suffering spiritual Alzheimer's", appears to be a wilful distortion? He simply didn't say that.

What he *did* say is:

"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."

Note that there is nothing in there about Anglicans having Alzheimer's, real or spiritual. He even said "WE" could be suffering from it (i.e. also Roman Catholics). And Riazat Butt parrots the same line that Ms. Gledhill pushes.

Rita Skeeter, at your service. Really quite pathetic.

Well, I think it was very nice of Cardinal Dias to come to the Lambeth Conference and tell us what we ought to do or not do.

It would also be very nice if Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori were invited to come to the next Synod of Bishops in Rome and tell them what they ought to do or not do.

I'm willing to bet real money that she would be even nicer.

I have a mother suffering from Alzheimers and a father who suffered from Parkinsons before he died. I didn't find the comments in the least bit offensive. Truth hurts

I thought this site was called "Thinking Anglicans".
Playing PC word-games with metaphors isn't thought - it's the bleating of sheep.

Metaphors are an essential party of the thinking process, and to censor them on the basis they will offend people who cannot see past the language is shutting down thought, but then, that has always been the real purpose of political correctness - the term belongs to Soviet Russia, where it originated.

As a thinking Anglican, I welcome what the Cardinal had to say, and if he had warnings to give us from his perspective, we would do better to consider them than to bicker about his choice of language. After all, if we can think, we are quite capable of rejecting what is ill-founded within his concerns and embracing what is sound.

Or are we just emotive Anglicans?

When you deny half of the world's population recognition (and implementation) of the Call, conveniently forget the not so distant atrocities committed or ignored in the past, and lecture another denomination about failing to preach the gospel while your own hemorrhages catastrophically, I'd say that's the kettle calling the pot black.

This American just learnt about irony on this latest trip to the UK. Lovely example!

I am firmly with Cynthia and Trebeard on this having worked with people with various kinds of Dementia.

"Isn't it interesting that Ruth Gledhill's headline, "Cardinal Ivan Dias: Anglican Church suffering spiritual Alzheimer's", appears to be a wilful distortion? He simply didn't say that."

Please!! Journalists DO NOT write their own headlines. I thought that was well known on TA by now.

Whilst agnostic about the Cardinal's terminology - though certainly not seeing devils at work as does Cynthia Goran and Treebeard in their reactions - I agree entirely with his point about all of (not just Anglicans) who do not grapple sufficiently with Scripture and Tradition and who would reinvent a gospel and church in their own image. At least Anglicans though are dealing/struggling to find a theology that speaks to the modern world rather than burying their heads in the sand as the RCs seem to be.

It seems that sheep too, may be demeaned with impunity here. And yet they too have their value and life.

Jesus seems to have recognized their value as living beings.

May all beings be well
May all creatures be happy

I would say there's no circus without clowns.

Now to figure out whether the Cardinal is leading the troupe, or some sub editor at the Times.

What disease is it when a church engages in an international conspiracy to protect sexual predators?

"Metaphors are an essential party of the thinking process, and to censor them on the basis they will offend people who cannot see past the language is shutting down thought, but then, that has always been the real purpose of political correctness - the term belongs to Soviet Russia, where it originated."

"Oh that's just PC blather" is one way to avoid looking at offensive language someone has used and to attribute over-sensitivity to those who are hurt.

I do not know where the term originated, or for what purpose, but now it is used most often by people who use offensive language and then try to excuse themselves by blaming those they have hurt.

It's like the "I'm sorry if anyone was offended" as a substitute for the more honest "I am sorry I hurt you."

Neil wrote: “I agree entirely with his point about all of (not just Anglicans) who do not grapple sufficiently with Scripture and Tradition and who would reinvent a gospel and church in their own image.”

Neil dear, it is the anti Moderns who are busy reinventing “a gospel and church in their own image.” A false gospel.

It's like the "I'm sorry if anyone was offended" as a substitute for the more honest "I am sorry I hurt you."

Posted by: Cynthia Gilliatt on Friday, 25 July 2008 at 4:25am BST

Yes, this is more like alocholic denial (and I should know)....

@Erika Baker:

Even if I take that at face value, that doesn't excuse the lead-in, which Ms. Gledhill almost certainly *did* write:

'A senior Roman Catholic cardinal has suggested that the Anglican Church may be “suffering from spiritual Alzheimer’s”. Speaking at a plenary session of the Lambeth Conference, Cardinal Ivan Dias, of the Vatican’s Congregation for Evangelisation, also indicated that perhaps the Anglican Communion had “ecclesial Parkinson’s”.'

Again, a willful distortion. And it fits into a pattern.

I think this goes to the heart of the Gospel. Is the Church a community of the Redeemed who love and respect each other, or is it a battleground in which any political weapon I can find to get my own way is legitimate?

It is not loving to take offence when none is intended, less so to try to censor debate or champion ones own cause. It is not loving to manipulate or throw tantrums or to want ones own way. It is not loving to substitute words someone didn't use to smear them. I happen to be myopic, but I wasn't offended when the Cardinal used my disability as a metaphor for poor judgement; I knew what he meant and that's all that matters.

Language is not inherently offensive. It is the meaning in the particular context which matters.

What is at stake here is the ability to have free and open and, yes, loving dialogue which can enrich our understanding of the Gospel and each other. That is a mutual process which isn't helped when people try to manipulate the debate to champion some cause. The only cause should be truth. We should all be on the same side, even those in other denominations.

Walsingham

I apologise!

I had read the press reports but not the actual speech. Having now read what was actually said I discover the following paragraph:

"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."

Nothing at all about Anglicans, no Roman Catholic lecturing others. Simply a Christian recognising a spiritual deficit in OUR own Christian communities, which clearly includes that of the speaker.

Whether the words Alzheimers or Parkinsons should have been used is a different issue.
You were right to point out the appalling spin in the reporting, not only from the Times but also from the other main newspapers.

And then the media complain about lacking access to the Lambeth deliberations!

Has anyone thought that, just possibly, the good Cardinal was speaking (perhaps obliquely) to the hierarchy of his own Church, too?

After all, accepting an invitation to speak at the seminal gathering of another Christian Church does at least hint at a willingness to engage in dialogue, which is different from monologue - as witnessed in some other branches of the Church.

With the reversal of Vatican II's decision to bring the Roman Catholic Church into the modern world, the Roman Curia has perhaps an even better reason for being called myopic.

"it is the anti Moderns who are busy reinventing “a gospel and church in their own image."

But isn't it funny, Goran, the lengths they will go to to claim otherwise? Apparently, for many of them, some of the ancient heresies were "orthodox", or at least minor disagreements, and ideas that were at the heart of Christianity for 1500 years were nothing more than "the traditions of men", if indeed they are acknowledged to have existed at all. It's as if history is all some sort of fiction.

History is an Art, I grant that Ford.

The most subjective of Arts ;=)

@Erika Baker:

No need for apology. At least not on your part. Meanwhile I'd like to see Riazat Butt and Ruth Gledhill apologize for their antics, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

The temper-tantrums they're throwing at not being allowed in are certainly entertaining enough.

Meanwhile the press (particularly, but hardly only, Ms. Gledhill and Ms. Butt) seems to be intentionally stirring the pot for all it's worth. If you read the original speech, it's actually not all that bad. Thought-provoking, even a bit self-critical (for I agree with Father Ron's assessment, that the text was direct as much at his own hierarchy). But nothing incendiary like the press is claiming.