{"id":4313,"date":"2006-12-01T07:31:07","date_gmt":"2006-12-01T07:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/the-man-in-whites-burden.html"},"modified":"2006-12-01T07:31:07","modified_gmt":"2006-12-01T07:31:07","slug":"the-man-in-whites-burden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/the-man-in-whites-burden.html","title":{"rendered":"The Man in White’s Burden"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fr. Raymond de Souza brings the events of the last week together in NRO:<\/a><\/p>\n

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Indeed, the last week has highlighted how it now falls to the pope to speak for global Christianity in a way that was not anticipated 40 years ago. While it was thought then that Rome would always have a certain primacy, the hope was that ecumenism would produce a stronger Christian voice, a joint voice of powerful evangelical witness. The contrary is happened; over the course of four decades Rome has declared itself irrevocably committed to the ecumenical path, and has found itself increasingly the only voice on the global stage. Who else can speak for Christianity? Call it the man in white\u2019s burden, if you will.<\/p>\n

Archbishop Williams confirmed the increasingly marginal role of Anglicanism in world Christianity on his October trip to China. He was permitted to visit China on the condition that he only met with people approved by the government. That the Chinese government, still a ferocious persecutor of religion, would consider Canterbury harmless enough for a visit speaks volumes. In their judgment, there was no danger of a troublesome Christian witness from Dr. Williams. He has a voice, but little to say. As for Patriarch Bartholomew, the Turkish government does not even recognize his international status as the primus inter pares<\/em> of all Orthodoxy. He has something to say, but he is not permitted to have a voice.<\/p>\n

The net result is that there are fewer Christian voices than there should be \u2014 the exact opposite of what the ecumenical project would have foreseen. This is a troublesome situation \u2014 to say the least \u2014in a world where religious forces are growing more influential, and the challenge of religious violence is more pressing. Benedict\u2019s trip to Turkey highlights one of the incongruities of the current situation; almost anyone can speak for Islam, but who speaks for Christians? It is usually put the other way around, observing that Islam has no central doctrinal authority. True enough, but on matters Islamic, it is customary for any Islamic head of government to speak for Islam in a way Christian heads of government do not. This reached absurd proportions in Turkey, where Benedict consented to meet with the president of the state religious-affairs bureaucracy, Ali Burdakoglu, in his own offices. No doubt a gracious olive branch after the unpleasantness of post-Regensburg, it was odd to see the pope of Rome speaking to Islam in the person of a state bureaucrat. That this was selected as the primary Christian-Muslim encounter of the trip only underscored the strangeness at which we have arrived: Only the pope is seen to speak for Christians, but anyone can speak for Islam.<\/p>\n

This is not a good situation; the world needs more Christian voices in conversation with Islam, not fewer. But Benedict\u2019s ecumenical week has demonstrated that those other voices are faint indeed.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Speaking of bringing all the threads together, thanks to a reader for alerting me to the fact that the last broadcast of the BBC3’s Choral Evensong, from 11\/29, the eve of St. Andrew, was from Wells Cathedral and contained prayers for the Pope’s meeting with Patriarch Bartholomew.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fr. Raymond de Souza brings the events of the last week together in NRO: Indeed, the last week has highlighted how it now falls to the pope to speak for global Christianity in a way that was not anticipated 40 years ago. While it was thought then that Rome would always have a certain primacy,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Man in White's Burden - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/the-man-in-whites-burden.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Man in White's Burden - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Fr. Raymond de Souza brings the events of the last week together in NRO: Indeed, the last week has highlighted how it now falls to the pope to speak for global Christianity in a way that was not anticipated 40 years ago. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4313\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}