The New Yorker has published a 12-page article, “A Canterbury Tale,” on the Church of England’s debate regarding women in the episcopate. The article, reported by Jane Kramer, provides several insights into the Archbishop of Canterbury’s efforts to keep both sides of the debate at the table.

Kramer writes that Archbishop Rowan Williams responded with a humorous rhetorical question —  “How do you eat an elephant?” — when she asked how he hoped to keep the debating parties together.

“I suppose it’s by using as best I can the existing consultative mechanisms to create a climate — and I think that’s often the best, to create a climate,” the archbishop said. “There’s a phrase which has struck me very much: that you can actually ruin a good cause by pushing it at the wrong moment and not allowing the process of discernment and consent to go on, and that’s part of my view.”

The archbishop took a similar approach in weighing how traditionalists would respond to the Vatican’s offer to welcome Anglicans who wish to become Roman Catholics.

The archbishop believes “there are many who would say, ‘If I believed that it was necessary for salvation, for Catholic integrity, to be in [communion] with the Bishop of Rome, then I would do it — but I don’t.’ ”

The archbishop said he is eager to see women become bishops of the Church of the England, “and at the same time very reluctant to see a decision made that will cost us some very, very valuable people. … There is something in that Catholic tradition, which is where I come from, which would be much poorer if we lost.”

Kramer tosses the words schismatic and fundamentalist around loosely, and always in reference to conservatives. For example, she writes that Nigeria and Uganda are “hostage to two radically patriarchal archbishops and have been openly schismatic since the ordination of women began.”

The Church of Uganda has officially ordained women priests since 1990. The Rev. Dr. Alison Barfoot has worked as Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi’s assistant for international relations since 2004.

Kramer does, however, quote Archbishop Williams as describing both Akinola and Orombi in a more sympathetic light:

“Occasionally, I’ve said to people, ‘You think of Peter or Henry … as ultra-conservative. Let me introduce you to a few of the people to their right so you can see that they are liberals in their own context.’ They are trying to maintain some elements of traditional Anglicanism as a credible faith in their society, and it’s not easy and they feel that we are making it harder.”

Douglas LeBlanc