Events are unfolding perfectly in our favor, but don't get cocky. Things are far from a done deal. Our Enemy has a trick or two up his sleeve that could derail everything.
We have been close, many times in history to outright victory, only to have it snatched from us at the last moment. Be very careful how you go.
The upcoming meeting of the American House of Bishops in New Orleans will be a defining moment that you must use wisely and carefully. New Orleans itself is a victim of Hurricane Katrina. There it will be ripe for Episcopal Church leaders to paint themselves as victims of fundamentalist Global South primates. They will paint themselves to Dr. Rowan Williams as ecclesiastical victims. They will draw parallels to the Lower Ninth Ward and how America and Bush abandoned this place and its people. They will draw parallels about the way they are being treated by those horrible orthodox African types.
Williams will be made to feel their outrage of abandonment and pain. Doing so will remove some of the psychological harshness posed by the Dar es Salaam deadline of Sept. 30.
This city was chosen for a particular reason and I suspect your hand was in it. You are to be congratulated. It is a wildly decadent city much like the Episcopal Church; their morals parallel one other. Make sure the handful of sodomite bishops is taken care of in the French Quarter and that the alcohol runs freely. The freer the alcohol flows, the faster the morals fly out the door.
Now it is very important, in private discussions between Mrs. Schori and Williams that Williams is made aware of the fact that without TEC's money Lambeth won't happen and the Anglican Consultative Council will cease to exist in any meaningful way. Williams knows this of course, and he won't bite the hand that feeds him. But he MUST be reminded.
That horrible Wantland fellow, the retired Bishop of Eau Claire, recently told the Anglican Communion Network conference in Dallas that the Church of England will never forsake the Episcopal Church because it has money, which the communion office desperately needs. This must not be said publicly, it must all be done privately, but the point must be made that without the millions needed to keep the whole show going, it would, in fact, collapse.
The fine art of manipulation must be brought into play. Work on this. The combination of "justice for homosexuals and lesbians" and "manipulation by money" must go hand in hand. Williams, as brilliant as he is, will be seduced. Remember he has already sent out the invitations for Lambeth next year. To withdraw them now would be personally humiliating. See that he doesn't do it. A mild remonstrance from him to the HOB about the Episcopal Church's "timing", breaking the "bonds of affection" and not coming to a "common mind" is in order but nothing stronger. Make sure he talks up the Covenant as the great salvation paper that will rescue the Anglican Communion from itself.
Make sure Williams has a private meeting over coffee with Gene Robinson to remind him that he is in complete and total sympathy with the homoerotic bishop, but that he can't say anything publicly to support him lest it upset the Global South Primates. Have the Archbishop tell Robinson that the next time he comes to London to look him up at Lambeth Palace where he will arrange a private dinner with him and Jeffrey John, his close personal friend.
Now make sure that when Williams talks to the HOB that he focuses on "spirituality." We love that word. The Council of Hades chortles every time we hear the word. One can make the word mean whatever one wants it to mean. The word has almost nothing to do with historic Christianity. We have raised a new generation of New Agers who talk endlessly about spirituality, which often goes along with nude Yoga, eating berries of indeterminate origin, coupled with a lot of gut grasping wheat germ. A lot of this "spirituality" talk has flowed over into the Episcopal Church with remarkable effectiveness in retreats given by those in sympathy with Hindu and Muslim spirituality as well as the "spirituality" of sodomy. Resurrect Sufi the Rumi. Spirituality is the new buzzword; play it up.
Also play up "prayer". That's another all-encompassing meaningless word. Oh, for the good ol' days when Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold was around. He often talked about prayer as "sending out good thoughts into the universe", especially after he survived prostate cancer. We were happy to oblige him. This might also be an occasion when Charles Bennison's Visigoth Rite could be presented to the House of Bishops as another way, as he often says, "to move forward" with TEC's new religion.
While the Network bishops are lost to us, the Windsor bishops are still our best hope. They recently had a meeting in Texas and heard from Canon Geoffrey Cameron, William's hatchet man on the Anglican Consultative Council. He flew in to stiffen the spines of the Windsor bishops so they will not cave into a small minority of fundamentalists in the HOB. He is brilliant, shrewd and a personal friend of Rowan Williams. He speaks for him. He is, of course, totally in our corner and works brilliantly to keep the evanescent Canon Kenneth Kearon, his master, fully informed. Texas Bishop Don Wimberly, a real fence sitter, whose diocese is as rich as sin is secretly in our camp, but likes to play up his "moderate" status. Make sure he does not fold.
It was Kearon, who you will recall, who flew to Canada and told their Synod that under no circumstances would the Canadian Church ever be thrown out of the communion regardless of how they voted on sodomite ceremonies and the like. They and he remain friends of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
There in New Orleans, the seduction of Williams must be made complete. We know where he stands on the issues especially sodomy. That horrible SPREAD paper put out by that fellow Rodgers was truly an expose of the worst order, but it is out there, and we suspect that is why Bishop Robert Duncan made a point of saying at the meeting of the Anglican Communion Network in Dallas that "what is needed is a completely new structure. Lambeth is failing, Canterbury is failing, the Anglican Consultative Council is prejudiced in a Western way and the primates are sadly divided north and south. We'll leave and they can take the stuff with them to hell, because that is where they will take it. This is Good Friday and we have to face it."
That statement almost undid us, Wormwood. Our father was on the verge of sending you a bottle of his special preserve "bishop's blood" from the Pike oak cellar when Duncan uttered those infamous words. He point blank refused to send it.
Earlier in the month, Bishop Rodgers expressed similar sentiments in an interview with that vulgar VirtueOnline news service saying that he thought that a major division of the Anglican Communion was likely.
UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES ARE YOU TO LET THIS HAPPEN, WORMWOOOD. You have no idea how heavy our father's grip will be on you if you fail in this mission. The Anglican Communion must stay together regardless of what happens. We can only win if they are all made to stay together. Think Wormwood. Less than three years ago some 17 primates refused to take communion with Griswold; now it is down to single digit numbers in Tanzania earlier this year over Mrs. Schori. We will whittle and wear them down, one primate at a time. And make sure that before all the bishops leave New Orleans that they do the Circle Dance of Dispossession. I must say that the video you sent down to us last time had us in total glee.
Mark my words, Wormwood, we have all the time in the world. In fact we HAVE the world and the darkness of the world has enveloped the Episcopal Church. All praises to our father in Hell.
Keep us posted on developments as they unfold. We shall be watching you closely.
I remain,
Your affectionate uncle,
Screwtape