T J McMahon has suggested in a comment at Stand Firm that the release of the ++Rowan's letters suggests a failed attempt to blackmail ++Rowan:
Well, I guess the one positive thing I can say for +Rowan Williams is that he did not succumb to blackmail when someone called or wrote him last week and said something to the effect of : “If you don’t say A and do B, I am going to give a copy of this letter to the press.” ‘Cause I can’t see anything to be gained by either him or Dr. Pitt handing it over to the Times at this point. If Dr. Pitt wanted to damage +Rowan, the time to have released the letter would have been the day after the Lambeth invitations went out, or after the bogus JSC report on the HoB meeting. And certainly, I can’t see +Rowan releasing it himself.
I guess that a blackmailer would need to follow through on the threat to release the letters if the threat failed to get the desired results. That way, the next person threatened will know the blackmailer is serious and will follow through.
If the blackmailer were a Reappraiser, the blackmailer's hope might be to
(a) antagonize the GAFCON crowd into breaking with the Anglican Communion,
(b) permanently damage ++Rowan's relationship with the Pope so ++Rowan is no longer motivated to please the Pope and would then be freed to follow his liberal inclinations regarding same sex blessings and sexually active gay bishops.
If the blackmailer were a Reasserter, the blackmailer's hope in releasing the letters might be to
(a) create a climate demanding ++Rowan resign.
Then again it may just be spite.
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3 comments:
Will the real Deborah Pitt please step forward.
As of today, no word who leaked the letter.
I am thinking it wasn't Deborah Pitt who leaked the letters, because she is an evangelical, no longer in the Anglican Communion and would presumably be upfront in speaking out on this. She had rightful possession of her copy of the letters. Would she have made that notation correcting his typo?
Whoever did it is keeping a low profile, so has something to lose in identity being revealed. (Perhaps didn't have rightful possession of the letters?) I am thinking that this is a copy of the copy on file in the Archbishop of Wales offices, and was "inherited" by the new Archbishop of Wales when ++Rowan moved on to be ABC.
I have just caught up with this blog. There is no mystery about the letters the Archbishop of Canterbury sent me. The full text of the reply I sent to his first letter is on google (look for St Hilda's church) I left the Church in Wales in part because of the Ab's liberal views.
I can send copies of the letters to any one who is interested.
Debbie Pitt
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