Lord Carey Denies Troubled Relationship with Williams

Lord George Carey has come out to express his dismay over a story published in last weekend's edition of the Sunday Telegraph which claimed that the former Archbishop of Canterbury blamed his successor, Dr Rowan Williams, for the crisis facing the Anglican Communion.

|TOP|The newspaper report was based on a talk that Lord Carey gave six weeks ago at Virginia Theological Seminary in which he reflected on the current crisis of the Anglican Communion from his perspective as the retired Archbishop of Canterbury.

The article reported Lord Carey as claiming that the Anglican Communion had fallen apart since he was succeeded by Rowan Williams and that his speech at the seminary could be seen as a "direct attack on Dr Williams's ability to maintain unity in the Church".

Lord Carey issued a statement, however, in which he said he was "dismayed" to see the front-page article, entitled "Church has fallen apart since I was in charge, says Carey", which claimed that his remarks would send his relationship with present Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams to a "new low".

"The gist of my talk about the causes of the divisions within Anglicanism was that although the current crisis was caused by the consecration of a practising homosexual in the United States, there was a crisis of authority within Anglicanism which had been with us for a very long time indeed."

He continued: "There are no grounds for taking my 'reflection' as an attack on the Archbishop of Canterbury. In fact the misleading nature of the Sunday Telegraph report says more about contemporary news values than it does about either myself or Dr Rowan Williams. The speech was supportive of him and his leadership in this current crisis and the Windsor Report."

|QUOTE|Lord Carey said the Sunday Telegraph "selectively quoted" from his talk to suggest he was criticising the ministry of Dr Williams.

He added that the quotations used in the newspaper report "were an entirely misleading interpretation of my talk".

One quote in the article stated, "When I left office at the end of 2002 I felt the Anglican Communion was in good heart".

He responded: "This gave the impression that I felt all the problems occurred on my successor's watch and even that they were in fact his fault. Had they quoted the very next clause of the same sentence this impression could never have been sustained by any fair-minded reader."

The full quote is: "When I left office at the end of 2002 I felt the Anglican Communion was in good heart, although forbidding black clouds were appearing on the horizon as a result of the decisive outcome of the Lambeth Conference on August 5th 1998 in which the resolution on homosexuality was agreed overwhelmingly by the assembled bishops."

|AD|Lord Carey contested the take of the Sunday Telegraph on his relationship with Dr Williams, saying that his relationship with the current Archbishop of Canterbury "has always been very warm".

"But what was most troubling of all about this report was the fact that I was denied any right to balance the story or deny the allegations made in the story," he said.

When asked to comment on the story by a Sunday Telegraph reporter, Lord Carey submitted a statement "to bring some balance to the report" which was then left out of the final article.

In the statement Lord Carey had reiterated the fact that he had not made an attack on the Archbishop of Canterbury in his speech and that he had actually made clear his support for the Windsor Report, an initiative of Dr Williams.

His statement to the Sunday Telegraph is in full here:

"I was recently invited to give a 'low-key' reflection on the current Anglican crisis at Virginia Theological Seminary in the United States. My talk was not in any way a criticism of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The problems facing the Anglican Communion are not the fault of any single individual but as my talk suggested arise from a crisis of authority within Anglicanism. These faultlines have been with us for a very long time indeed, although the cause for the immediate crisis was the ordination of a practising homosexual bishop in the United States.

"Rowan Williams has himself recently suggested that the Anglican Communion could split. I agree with his analysis which is why I support his initiative, the Windsor Report, which suggests ways in which reconciliation can take place.

"In my Virginia talk I made clear that I am not a campaigner. The greater part of my energy these days is spent in interfaith work and development. My passion is the mission of the church and sharing the love of God in Jesus Christ with the poor and needy."

Lord Carey's reflection to Virginia Theological Seminary can be read at www.glcarey.co.uk