Word: crockford
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...unlikely cause of all the consternation was the new edition of the venerable Crockford's Clerical Directory, a biennial reference book of statistics and short clergy biographies. But the reason the volume is avidly awaited is its authoritative essay on the state of the church. By tradition, the writer is anonymous, allowing him to cast aside habitual ecclesiastic politesse and speak with complete candor...
...attack on the Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert A.K. Runcie, since 1980 Primate of All England and spiritual leader of the world's 65 million-member Anglican Communion (including U.S. Episcopalians). The Archbishop, a decorated tank commander in World War II who earned the name "Killer Runcie," was characterized in Crockford's as a spineless churchman who evinces no "clear basis for his policies other than taking the line of least resistance on each issue...
...good measure, the essay branded Runcie an "elitist liberal" who uses his influence to pack the hierarchy and bureaucracy with cronies and woolly- minded leftists. Increasingly, charged Crockford's, the Church of England is run by theologically vapid leaders who follow "what they think is the wish of the majority of the moment" and whose "moderately Catholic style . . . is not taken to the point of having firm principles." Meanwhile, declared the 16-page piece, few appointments go to biblical conservatives in the Evangelical faction or to liturgical and doctrinal traditionalists in the Anglo-Catholic wing, even though the two groups...
...banner headlines in the English press trumpeted the Crockford's affair, Runcie offered no response to the attack. Senior ecclesiastics instantly rushed to the primate's defense, observing that he had been anything but weak in criticizing Margaret Thatcher's treatment of the poor. The essay was excoriated as an exercise of "anonymous, gutless malice" by one furious bishop. "Scurrilous," snapped the realm's No. 2 churchman, Archbishop of York John Habgood. York had his own reason to complain: he and Runcie were yoked in condemnation by Crockford's. In fact, the essay was seen as a bid to derail...