Theo Hobson's Choice: Catholic or Liberal?

From The Guardian

Find out why Father Giles is irate.

"Deconstruction is a form of analysis in which the internal illusions and rhetorical habits of a cultural tradition are nakedly exposed, its age-old evasions and contradictions finally forced to the surface. As an intellectual sympathetic to postmodernism, it must give Rowan Williams a certain thrill to know that he is presiding over the deconstruction of Anglicanism.

"The essential development of the past few years is the discovery of the impossibility of liberal Anglicanism... What the current crisis has established beyond any doubt is that this liberal middle ground is dead and gone.

"Williams has learned this the hard way: that Catholics cannot afford to be liberals too. A Catholic has very publicly sacrificed his or her belief in the moral rightness of ordaining homosexuals, for the sake of the church's unity...

"Kierkegaard called this the teleological suspension of the ethical: committing a moral crime for the sake of a cause that transcends human morality. Williams is performing the ecclesiastical suspension of the ethical: renouncing the moral good for the sake of the unity of the Church. This is what a Catholic must do.

"The average liberal Anglican priest (let's call him Father Giles) is understandably irate. His former mentor is telling him that he must not push for the ordination of homosexuals while it endangers the church's unity. He must accept the fact that the institution he serves is, for now, structurally homophobic...

"This is what Catholicism demands, Williams is telling Father Giles - and Catholicism trumps liberalism... But Father Giles had always thought that Anglicans were free from this dilemma, that they had a looser concept of authority..."

Here's another piece from Hobson -- a liberal challenging others to 'come out' in You can't have it both ways