A Letter
From Fr Geoffrey Kirk
To Bishop Bennison
FiF UK - London |
3 October 2002
Dear Bishop Bennison,
It was not FiF/NA but I who placed the relevant paragraphs of Archbishop Rowan Williams's letter with regard to Fr Moyer on the FiF Website. I did so on the clear understanding that the letter was not, as you describe it a 'private letter to Geoffrey Kirk', but a formal letter to the National Secretary of Forward in Faith UK, and that as such it was intended for the public domain. The Archbishop concluded his letter:' I think that the most I can do is to place on record what I've said in the second paragraph above'. I would be grateful, therefore, if you would put a notice to that effect on your diocesan website, lest your readers be misled.
I have now put on the FiF website the full texts of the letter of the Chairman of Forward in Faith International to the Archbishop of Canterbury, my letter to the Archbishop of Wales and their respective replies, in case of further innuendo or misunderstanding. The concern about Dr Moyer felt at Lambeth (and no doubt communicated personally to you on more than one occasion) was epitomised for me by the final paragraph of a letter received some short time ago from the Revd Canon Herman Browne, the Archbishop's Officer for the Anglican Communion. Herman wrote 'Whilst you were informed correctly that the Archbishop cannot act as decisively as you might like, you can be assured that he has done and is doing an enormous amount, away from the public gaze. to prevent the Anglican Communion becoming a family in which the unfaithful go unrebuked in the persecution of the orthodox.'
It is, of course open to you to try to persuade Dr Williams to say now the opposite of what he said in his letter to me. But I suspect that an appeal from a liberal American bishop to some supposed principal of inter-provincial collegiality will seem to him (as it does to me) just a bit rich.
With all good wishes,
Yours sincerely,
Geoffrey Kirk
Cc: The Archbishop of Wales
The Most Reverend Frank T. Griswold, III
The Revd Dr David Moyer
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