Ship of Fools: Archbishop Robert Runcie

Thread: Archbishop Robert Runcie Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by sebby (# 15147) on :

Although Archbishop Runcie of Canterbury is often referred to in posts in various parts of the Ship, I think that he deserves to be a topic in his own right. I think Heaven the correct place because it is appropriate to the man and, I would hope, the discussion that may insue.

A consumate player of different persona, all of them sincere, and a high church liberal with an intellect, he would not have claimed to have been a theologian. He followed a more 'previous' path and was a superb classicist.

Often maligned, YouTube coverage limited to the Charles and Diana wedding, we don't seem to hear much of him these days, yet he could be extremely witty and beloved of people who met him.

Do any Shipmates have memories of him? Anecdotes? Opinions of his archiepiscopal reign?

Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :

I remember meeting Lord Runcie at church back in the nineties when he was recently retired. I found him erudite and intellectual. My wife, who is still Anglican, remembers asking him about Prince Charles and Diana's marriage. He said it probably wouldn't last and unfortunately he was right.

Posted by Vaticanchic (# 13869) on :

No-one could say "I, Diana Frances" like him. Not even Diana.

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

He was a good egg. And liberal can mean so many different things in different contexts.

Posted by Mr. Rob (# 5823) on :

quote:
Originally posted by sebby:
... A consumate player of different persona, all of them sincere ... Often maligned ...

Years before he was ordained, in March, 1945, Robert Alexander Kennedy Runcie was awarded the Military Cross for bravery, rescuing, under fire, a wounded comrade from a burning tank and also for bravery while engaging the enemy.

From the Citation for Gallantry for the Military Cross, March, 1945:

'One of his three tanks was knocked out by an anti-tank gun and set on fire. Runcie discovered that one of his men was trapped in the tank and went across open ground under enemy fire in order to pull out this remaining man who was unconscious. He succeeded in getting him out.'

Robert Runcie was not someone I would ever malign.
*

Posted by Sir Pellinore (# 12163) on :

I would share the opinion of previous posters that he was a decent, insightful and thoroughly effective man in any position he took on.

Posted by Dinghy Sailor (# 8507) on :

CE but in error

(or should that be "ce but in eRRor"?)

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
CE but in error

(or should that be "ce but in eRRor"?)

???? [Oh, I've got it!]

[ 17. August 2012, 08:15: Message edited by: Angloid ]

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

I didn't like him at the time, I was far too evangelical. Now, I look back on him with some affection. I know people who knew him and they all speak highly of him.

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :

There's a lovely stained glass window of him in his home church of St Faith's, Crosby, Liverpool. He was very modest about his military bravery; very courageous in his sermon after the Falklands; courageous too in standing up to Thatcher over the Faith in the City report. By all accounts he was an excellent mimic. His 'liberal catholicism' (for want of a better term) was suspiciously like agnosticism to many who wanted a black-and-white faith, but probably authentically Anglican in its unwillingness to make 'windows into people's souls' and much more profound than some might think.

Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :

Terry Waite's Travels with a Primate is now out-of-print in the U.S. and U.K., but try to find a used copy for a delightful, informal account of Terry Waite's and Robert Runcie's working together. (Waite's hostage situation is only briefly mentioned -- that's the material of another book -- but his story of being greeted by the Archbishop on the airplane when he returned home from captivity is priceless!)

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

I have just ordered a copy. There are many cheap, 2nd hand copies in both the UK and US.

Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on :

I heard a wonderful story about Runcie. When he was Principal of a theological college, he asked one of the ordinands what he was giving up for Lent. The chap blushed deeply, and stuttered, "Mmmmassturbation". "Ah, what a heavenly way to spend Easter!"

I like him for lots of other reasons as well, but that humane sense of humour is great.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
Terry Waite's Travels with a Primate is now out-of-print in the U.S. and U.K., but try to find a used copy for a delightful, informal account of Terry Waite's and Robert Runcie's working together. (Waite's hostage situation is only briefly mentioned -- that's the material of another book -- but his story of being greeted by the Archbishop on the airplane when he returned home from captivity is priceless!)

I have just finished reading it - thanks for recommending it. Very enjoyable.

Posted by Sandemaniac (# 12829) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
When he was Principal of a theological college, he asked one of the ordinands what he was giving up for Lent. The chap blushed deeply, and stuttered, "Mmmmassturbation". "Ah, what a heavenly way to spend Easter!"

A good moment to break out this smiley: [Killing me]

He also kept Berkshire pigs IIRC, which shows considerable taste in his choice of porcine pals.

AG

Posted by Zappa (# 8433) on :

I was (name drop name drop, but not for the first time [Hot and Hormonal]

) his, Waites' and some other pale effete dude's driver for four days in Melbourne. He was warm, articulate, utterly uncondescending, and would have preferred a Jaguar to the top of the line Australian car I was wheeling him around in.

I must get Waites' book. I doubt the Melbourne trip, much less the driver, rates a mention!

Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :

There's a chapter on his trip to Australia, but mostly about Brisbane.
[Frown]

Posted by jedijudy (# 333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Zappa:
I must get Waites' book. I doubt the Melbourne trip, much less the driver, rates a mention!

I'll bet he would have, had he known a Heavenly Host was driving him!

Posted by Zappa (# 8433) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
There's a chapter on his trip to Australia, but mostly about Brisbane.

Meh!

quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:

quote:
Originally posted by Zappa:
I must get Waites' book. I doubt the Melbourne trip, much less the driver, rates a mention!
I'll bet he would have, had he known a Heavenly Host was driving him!

Indeed. But I disguised the celestial aura well.

Posted by Sir Pellinore (# 12163) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
There's a chapter on his trip to Australia, but mostly about Brisbane.

He had memories of up here?
[Confused]

Posted by (S)pike couchant (# 17199) on :

I liked Runcie. At the risk of getting Purgatorial or even Hellish, it seems that we have been doommed to alternate between good and bad ABCs in the period since the Second World War. To whit:

William Temple (good)
Geoffrey Fisher (bad, or at least deeply unlikeable)
Michael Ramsey (very good)
Donald Coggan (a bit of an exception, I have no strong feeling about him)
Robert Runcie (good)
George Carey (disastrous)
Rowan Williams (good, if beleaguered).

A bit simplistic, but does anyone seriously doubt that schema?

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

No - sounds accurate to me though i wouldn't usually admit it in public.

Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sir Pellinore:

quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
There's a chapter on his trip to Australia, but mostly about Brisbane.

He had memories of up here?

Mostly about koalas.
[Smile]

Posted by beachcomber (# 17294) on :

The mention of koalas draws me in too.

Posted by beachcomber (# 17294) on :

The mention of koalas draws me in too.

btw what is flood protection ?

Posted by sebby (# 15147) on :

quote:
Originally posted by (S)pike couchant:
I liked Runcie. At the risk of getting Purgatorial or even Hellish, it seems that we have been doommed to alternate between good and bad ABCs in the period since the Second World War. To whit:

William Temple (good)
Geoffrey Fisher (bad, or at least deeply unlikeable)
Michael Ramsey (very good)
Donald Coggan (a bit of an exception, I have no strong feeling about him)
Robert Runcie (good)
George Carey (disastrous)
Rowan Williams (good, if beleaguered).

A bit simplistic, but does anyone seriously doubt that schema?

Unfair on Geoffrey Fisher. Most people base their views on Roald Dahl's false memory of him, when actually RD was the nastier of the two.

Donald Coggan had a lovely woice but his brief tenure made an expensive enthronement hardly value for money.

Posted by jedijudy (# 333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by beachcomber:
btw what is flood protection ?

Flood protection keeps someone from posting multiple times quickly, thus keeping them from 'flooding' the boards. At best, flooding can be annoying, at worst can wreak havoc and inanity.

jedijudy
Heaven Host

Posted by (S)pike couchant (# 17199) on :

quote:
Originally posted by sebby:

quote:
Originally posted by (S)pike couchant:
I liked Runcie. At the risk of getting Purgatorial or even Hellish, it seems that we have been doommed to alternate between good and bad ABCs in the period since the Second World War. To whit:

William Temple (good)
Geoffrey Fisher (bad, or at least deeply unlikeable)
Michael Ramsey (very good)
Donald Coggan (a bit of an exception, I have no strong feeling about him)
Robert Runcie (good)
George Carey (disastrous)
Rowan Williams (good, if beleaguered).

A bit simplistic, but does anyone seriously doubt that schema?
Unfair on Geoffrey Fisher. Most people base their views on Roald Dahl's false memory of him, when actually RD was the nastier of the two.

Didn't Fisher also tell Harold Macmillan not to appoint Michael Ramsey as his ABY, thus (allegedly) earning the rebuff 'Thank you, Your Grace. You may have been Doctor Ramsey's headmaster, but you were not mine'?

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

The version I've heard is that Fisher went to tell Macmillan not to appoint Ramsey saying something like "I've been his headmaster and I know him. He is quite unsuitable to be Archbishop of Canterbury. He is an Anglo Catholic, a mystic and a man of prayer. Quite unsuitable to be Archbishop of Canterbury."

Would that that was the standard definition of Anglo Catholic now.

Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :

Speaking of Runcies and books, I recently read and enjoyed Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death: The Grantchester Mysteries by James Runcie, son of the Archbishop.

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :

quote:
Originally posted by sebby:

Donald Coggan had a lovely woice but his brief tenure made an expensive enthronement hardly value for money.

Six years. Maybe briefer than average but a lot longer than Pope John Paul 1.

Coggan hardly set the world alight, but apart from his lovely voice he was a warm and caring pastor. He confirmed me and I remember him hosting several ordinands' gatherings at which he spoke from the heart and with intelligence.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by (S)pike couchant:

George Carey (disastrous)

When he was appointed it became inevitable that women would be ordained in the Church of England. For that great blessing, we should all thank him. Though he did a lot of other good things as well.

Posted by (S)pike couchant (# 17199) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:

quote:
Originally posted by (S)pike couchant:

George Carey (disastrous)
When he was appointed it became inevitable that women would be ordained in the Church of England. For that great blessing, we should all thank him. Though he did a lot of other good things as well.

His immediate predecessors were in favour of the ordination of women as well, I believe, and it's difficult not to think that any one of them would have handled it better. The problem with Carey was that, more than any other Archbishop since the second world war, he acted as the leader of a party or faction within the Church of England rather than seeking to be fair to all sides.
If one were feeling waspish, one could say that ++Rowan has done exactly the opposite.

Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
Six years. Maybe briefer than average but a lot longer than Pope John Paul 1.

Yeah, but JPI didn't retire: he was retired.

I met RR once in the mid-80s. He was visiting a retired Canon of St Albans who lived near us. I was deputed to meet him at the railway station. We walked the mile or so to Canon Oldham's house and he wouldn't hear of me carrying his bag (I was 20ish, he 65ish). As we turned a particular corner, he pointed up at the obvious dent and repair in the brickwork of the Victorian cottage on the corner and said, "I did that. Drove a tank into it in 1944.". Every time I visit my parents I pass the cottage and say a little prayer for him.

I met Coggan when I was a seminarian. We were on a train from Winchester to London. On discovering that I was a Catholic, he urged me to "read, mark, learn and inwardly digest" Dei Verbum, which he told me was "simply superb".

Posted by beachcomber (# 17294) on :

quote:
Originally posted by jedijudy:

quote:
Originally posted by beachcomber:
btw what is flood protection ?
Flood protection keeps someone from posting multiple times quickly, thus keeping them from 'flooding' the boards. At best, flooding can be annoying, at worst can wreak havoc and inanity.

jedijudy
Heaven Host

Thanks very much. Live and learn.

Posted by daisymay (# 1480) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:

quote:
Originally posted by (S)pike couchant:

George Carey (disastrous)
When he was appointed it became inevitable that women would be ordained in the Church of England. For that great blessing, we should all thank him. Though he did a lot of other good things as well.

Yes, I also thought he did lots of great good things, and had all sorts of music that AB's hadn't before and he rescued people in Africa.

Posted by Sir Pellinore (# 12163) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:

quote:
Originally posted by Sir Pellinore:

quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
There's a chapter on his trip to Australia, but mostly about Brisbane.

He had memories of up here?

Mostly about koalas.

Thank heavens! For a moment I thought it might have been something serious.
[Killing me]

Posted by sebby (# 15147) on :

I think I was a little unfair on Donald Coggan. He certainly had a distinctive and lovely voice and was an intelligent and gentle pastor. He was also generous to other traditions; celebrating in Exeter cathedral once he used almost catholic ceremonial without flinching. He was also loved by the royal family and apppreciated by Cardinal Hume. Hume once made the remark that the Anglican hierarchy at the time were "a gentlemanly and impressive bunch".

I suspect that Macmillan's amusing comment to Fisher has done the rounds a bit and has become rather embellished. Although he behaved discourteously to Ramsey in constantly writing to The Times, some have said that Fisher was correct in that Ramsey, a holy and wonderful priest and scholar, went on to be party to some disasterous appointments.

Runcie has been hugely neglected of late. A classicist rather than a theologian, he had a fine and incisive intellect. He could also be very funny and wore his office lightly.

George Carey certainly had some strong points, but committed a cardinal error with the establishment: he wore his office heavily. There was just that touch of 'I'm the archbishop of Canterbury you know' about him. Sadly he went on to commit the Fisher mistake of (thinly disguised) criticism of his successor. It was also impossible for Rowan Williams to dislodge some of the curia that GC had installed at Lambeth.

Rowan Williams said at the outset that he would not always please the camps that felt they owned him, be they catholic, or left-wing or liberal or whatever. It has been remarkable to have had such a man at Canterbury, and I just suspect that history will judge him kindly. The 'man is not without honour except..' is true of him: parts of the RCC would appear to hold him in the highest regard. It was clear to the whole entourage that Rowan and Benedict XVI had a personal chemistry that few others would have shared, not least their personality types, intellect and interests. The pope has read a number of Rowan's books and studied a TV broadcast of at at last one of Rowan's lectures, one of which he is said to have replayed a number of times: it is said that BXVI recommended it (and them) to a pontifical institute for further study.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

I heard Coggan preach once, at the annual Shipping Service at Winchester Cathedral. This was a biggish deal attended by various admirals, master mariners, shipping company people, and so on. Coggan's sermon was very good but was, slightly surprisingly, about starting out in life. At the end of it he said that he'd misunderstood the briefing and had thought that it was to be a service for Sea Cadets (i.e. youngsters) and had planned his sermon accordingly, but it didn't really matter because it was never to late to start again. Very effective, humble and rather moving in the simplicity of both the message and the presentation.
I've been told that Ramsey, for all his holiness and general goodness, was rather snobbish about Coggan's social and academic background; and could be a bit bitchy about Fisher too, for other reasons. (I had this from the late Canon James Owen of Little St Mary's Cambridge, who knew Ramsey quite well.) Haven't read Edward Carpenter's life of Fisher for years but IIRC it makes quite a good case for him and as someone said upthread, the popular image tends now to rely on Roald Dahl (who really was a rather nasty piece of work in many ways, and seems- can't remember where I read this- to have attributed to Fisher a love of thrashing which in fact was that of quite another headmaster).
I remember Runcie very fondly: I was a teenager in Canterbury diocese in the 80s and only met him a couple of times but there was a sense that there was a good chap in charge. I know that Humphrey Carpenter's book about him was rather controversial but for me it just made him even more appealing- stylish and witty but with a holiness and a scholarship there too.
I'm afraid I can't think of a single good thing to say about Carey, who always seemed rather prickly and touchy in office. Mind you, I may have contributed to that a bit. Older shipmates may remember a small fuss in the papers right at the start of his Archiepiscopate about the cost of his new car. That was my fault, I'm afraid, as a clerk at the Church Commissioners- an unwise mention of it to a friend on the Evening Standard. There was a hell of a row about it at the time at Millbank and Lambeth.

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

My wife met Runcie once. Her headteacher (CofE Infants' School) had heard that he would be in the area and had contacted his chaplain to invite him to visit. Only when he accepted did she tell the Parish Priest: "Oh, by the way, I've just invited the Archbishop of Canterbury to lunch ..."!

Anyway, he came and my wife was impressed. The first thing he did was say, "I must meet the children". He put on his garb and his crook and went into the playground. Now the children had been well taught in how you address an Archbishop: they were told to call him "Your Grace". Unfortunately some of them hadn't quite got it right, and in a trice he was surrounded by children saying, "Hiya, Grace, nice to see you, Grace ..." He was charmed.

It was a good visit and my wife was quite shocked when we visited St. Albans a few years later and came face-to-face with his grave.

(FWIW, some time later David Hope, newly appointed Bishop of London, came to visit the school. My wife made a chocolate pudding which he seemed to especially like, and for some time it was known as "Bishop of London's pudding" in our house!)

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