’I can be indiscreet’

Press, 10 July 1979, Page 2

’I can be indiscreet’

“1 nave got no say in it whatsoever so 1 can be indiscreet — no-one on the English scene measures up,” said the Dean of Trinity College, Cambridge (the Rt Rev. J. A. T. Robinson) when asked who he thought should be the new Archbishop of Canterbury. Bishop Robinson (above right) is shown being welcomed at Christchurch Airport yesterday by the Bishop of Christchurch (the Rt Rev. W. A. Pyatt). He has come to New Zealand as visiting Selwyn lecturer to St John’s Theological College, Auckland.

Bishop Robinson is the author of a number of books, including “Honest to

God,” which aroused considerable controversy in the 19605.

“Positive and prophetic” leadership was needed to take the church into the 1980 s, Bishop Robinson said. “Someone w’ho will speak out” was needed. The need was all the more important after recent events in Britain. “Mrs Thatcher is a disaster of the first order,” he said.

Because of the increasing popularity of the Right wing, Britain could be in danger of a less liberal society, he said. The Anglican Church could afford an outspoken

leader at a time when there were big challenges to the whole Western lifestyle, said Bishop Robinson. The new leader, while outspoken, need not be divisive, however. Cardinal Hume, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Britain, was an example of the kind of leader who had inspired his church in a time of need.

Bishop Robinson arrived in Christchurch yesterday morning. He will give three Selwyn lectures before leaving for Franz Josef Glacier tomorrow afternoon. The lectures will focus on the roots of radicalism and its implications for theology, morality, and Christian political witness.