PRIESTCRAFT
AMONG all the various items of assorted ecclesiastical sharp practice that were on display last week in Church House, West- minster, one has gone largely unnoticed. As the day for the General Synod debate on women's ordination approached, it became ever more important to isolate Dr Graham Leonard, Bishop of London, whose threat to lead dissidents out in a body was beginning to look dangerously credible. Leonard himself had recovered most of the credibility temporarily lost over the Pasco affair, after an American court settlement in which the diocese of Oklahoma had withdrawn all charges of financial irregularity against Pasco's church. After the settlement, the diocese of Oklahoma issued an extraordinary press release, inaccurately describing the settle- ment, and repeating all charges. This was issued on 30 January, and promptly forgot- ten. Except, that is, back in London at the headquarters of the Anglican Consultative Council. On Tuesday of last week — two days before the crucial debate — copies of the press release were taken by hand (over three weeks after it was issued) to the journalists assembled in the press gallery of the General Synod. The question is, why now? Was it, as some surmised, a coun- terblast to the Sunday Telegraph's 'Synod Notebook', which in an article headlined `The Plot to isolate Bishop Leonard', had two days before claimed that Pasco had been 'triumphantly vindicated'? Whatever the answer, it was all extremely fishy. Was this a piece of dirty tricks tactics designed to weaken Dr Leonard's position? If not, why did the supposedly neutral Anglican Consultative Council behave in this way?
Previous page
