Monday, July 23, 2012

Wise words from a dark horse

A while ago we did a wee bit of speculating re the next ABC and I made a fairly easy to work out hint as to who my dark horse candidate is. Taonga today has posted a superb article written by Giles Fraser as he works up an interview with that person who is the Bishop of ... well, why don't you read it for yourself.

I think those African connections will not go amiss in the next ABC.

21 comments:

Bryden Black said...

On verra, alors! Mais il a le sens d’un person qui vit avec et connait les prolétaires et les spives - eh bien sur, les Africaines!

Peter Carrell said...

Pour ne rien dire d'etre le Dean of Liverpool (to say nothing of being the Dean of Liverpool ... as a person who has the sense of living with and knowing the people who make up the mass of society).

Father Ron Smith said...

""When one group corners a source of human flourishing, it is deeply wicked. It applies to the City, to commodities traders, and to churches who say only this way is right." This is pretty strong stuff. He continues: "The City is unspeakably powerful. The longer I go on, the more I am aware of the power of finance."

- Bishop Justin Welby -

"Woe to you, rich!" That's what I like to hear. sounds a bit like Jesus in the gospels.

Sorry I don't speak French, but I'd like to imply my approval of the good Bishop.

Anonymous said...

'une personne'
Martin le pédant

Oui, si George Carey pouvait devenir l'archevêque de Cantorbéry, après seulement deux ans d'épiscopat, il est certainement possible que Justin Welby pourrait faire la même chose. Puisqu'il est évangélique et il était une fois un membre de Holy Trinity Brompton, il pourrait bénéficier de l'appui de la seule partie de l'Église d'Angleterre qui est actuellement en pleine croissance.
En plus, il parle et ecrit en anglais!

Anonymous said...

Oh dear :(

Is it too much to expect an Archbishop who actually understands economics?

I sometimes wonder if being a Bishop in the Anglican Communion requires economic illiteracy.

Shame. We just had to put up with a Socialist ABC, surely we don't need another.

Janice said...

Show offs! My high school French was just sufficient to get the gists.

Paul Powers said...

I had no idea that La Francophonie was flourishing in New Zealand. Cela dit, it strikes me as somehow un-Anglican to carry on this conversation in a language "not understanded of the people."

Tim Chesterton said...

Shawn - check out his background, you will discover he understands economics quite well.

Father Ron Smith said...

To the Francophiles on this thread. Do you realise how much the local translation of the Bible into the language understood of the people has meant to people in the pews?

Of course, there are always those who want to keep the conversation secret by applying their superior knowledge. Speaking in tongues, perhaps? A little learning can be a dangerous thing. And a lot can make one a wee bit proud.

Paul said: I would rather speak one word in the language that is understood, rather than a thousand in a tongue 'they' do not know. But then, he knew what he was talking about. He was not a gnostic1

Anonymous said...

Hola, Paul - se lo quieres decir y soy de acuerso que Cranmer tenia razon. Pero tengo que escribir en el idioma de las ranas por que no se habla espanol en la tierra de la nube larga y blanca. Lo siento.
Martin Don Nadie

Bryden Black said...

Ou est la femme içi, Msr AntiTroll?! “Une personne” c’est L’Académie Française, n’est-ce pas! Toodle-hoo!

BTW Janice: While old school atlases were once colouring many an African country pink (for Empire), many others were Francophone and still are due to France’s joining in the 19th C Metropolitan scramble for Africa. That’s why I played non-vulgar-like ... “En plus, il parle et ecrit en anglais!” mercifully for those poms who still speak only a version of ‘English’ - though one would hardly believe it when walking down London’s main streets nowadays, since the Mother Tongue is barely heard the length of Oxford St! And as Welby well knows, Scouse is another language altogether! All of which means the Man is more than qualified to tackle multi-cultural, multi-faith Britain. But as I say: on verra alors! / we will just (wait and) see - prayerfully ...

Bryden Black said...

Thanks, Martin, for acknowledging the puns re Akaroa, with its being first founded by the French (it’s just down the track from Chch); just as of course there was that Portugese explorer who committed all these parts to God as the Great South Land of the Holy Spirit - a suitable 1 Corinthian thing to do really!

Anonymous said...

Tim,

I did, before I made the post. I also read as many articles and interviews I could find. Still not impressed, as least as far as his views on economics goes. I'm tempted, if he does become the next ABC, to send him copies of 'Human Action' by Ludvig von Mises, and Meltdown (on the current crisis) by Thomas Woods.

Paul Powers said...

Mi querido Martín: no me sorprende para nada que no se habla el idioma de Cervantes en su país, mais je suis vraiment étonné qu'on parle la langue de Molière là bas. I suspect that many who do are like the prioress who spoke French after the school of Stafford atte Bowe, the French of Paris being to her unknown.

Paul Powers said...

By the way, une personne is correct and its gender is always feminine, regardless of the sex of the person being described. As the current ABC might say in his native tongue to those struggling with a foreign language, "Mae Google yn eich ffrind" (Google is your friend.

Fr. Ron is correct. St. Paul wasn't a gnostic. We shouldn't be Gnostics either.

Bryden Black said...

Thanks for the grammar lesson Paul! As I say: ‘“Une personne” c’est L’Académie Française, n’est-ce pas! Toodle-hoo!’ [The last being yet another pun, linguistic rather than geographic: WW1 saw Tommies saying “à tout à l’heure” all in a rush as “toodle-hoo” - precisely because they very well might not, being dead!] For all that, argot or slang is seeing a number of words nowadays lose genders I’ve found. Aber; immer “das Mädchen”, ja! Germans are far too proud to bend to sloppy ways: pace Google!

Irrespective of any of this: I’d rather see a new ABC who was well aware of the international scene, and Welby does have that about him, and at a ground level that belies the present incumbent’s stratospheric altitude view of things, which I sense has not served the AC very well at all this past decade - and perhaps now too the CoE re Bishops. But we shall all just have to wait and see ...

Anonymous said...

Mi querido Pablo,
En Nueva Zelanda siguieron las tradiciones de su fundación colonial, porque el francés se enseña en Gran Bretaña como la primera lengua extranjera en las escuelas, asi que se hizo lo mismo en la colonia.
"I suspect that many who do are like the prioress who spoke French after the school of Stafford atte Bowe, the French of Paris being to her unknown."
Plus probablement d'apres le college de Waikikamukau.

Bryden: yes, it would be good to remind (or rather inform) our cousins (or rather my nephews) in Terra Australis (non diutius Incognita) of the real significance of the dear country's name. And again, I am astonished by the prescient knowledge of St Dante of Florence, who identified (c. AD 1310) Purgatory as a great island (a nine-ledged mountain, actually) in the southern hemisphere where those northerners guilty of the seven deadly sins were sent to endure purgative torment to make them fit for the Beatific Vision of Paradise. Some even think there's a reference to the Southern Cross in Canto 1, l.23 of Purgatorio!
Martin

Bryden Black said...

Thanks Martin - but I learned most of my French down the road from your St's city, Tours, i.e. Blois! But I'd be careful about consigning those convict cousins to Purgatory! ;-))

Anonymous said...

Bryden, the trouble with Aussies (and I lived there as a child, too) is that their ancestors were sent for reformation to Purgatory but they mistook it for (Surfer's) Paradise.
Or as I like to say, America was started by Brits who sailed to the New World *for the sake of* their convictions, while Oz was started by Brits who sailed their *because of* their convictions.
None of this helps when you lose at cricket.
Martin of Tours de France

Bryden Black said...

loved the puns, Martin: yellow(and green) jerseys rule OK!

Anonymous said...

Bryden,

“If I were punished for every pun I shed, there would not be left a puny shed of my punnish head”

(Dr Johnson)

I can only imagine that having to cheer the triumph of un rosbif en velo must have been very galling for the Gauls.

Martin