Sunday, November 21, 2010

Episcopal hypocrisy and the bankruptcy of republicanism

What is it about republicans which forces them to support their position by levelling puerile personal insults at members of the Royal Family?

My own answer to that that question is that their arguments are so bankrupt and devoid of logic that childish personal abuse is all they have to support their infinitesimally small minority view.

Take for example, the drivel written about the recent Royal engagement by the Bishop of Willesden, the Rt Rev ‘Pete’ Broadbent, on his Facebook and Twitter pages, in which he likens Prince William and Kate Middleton to “shallow celebrities”, adding that the Royal Family was full of “broken marriages and philanderers”. That may or may not be true, but philanderers or not, those in glass houses should beware of throwing stones, because I cannot remember any Royal sex abuse scandals, whereas the Church of England positively bristles with them such as here, here, here and here, to name but four.

Not content with blackguarding the happy couple personally, he goes on to suggest – and remember, this is a Bishop of the Church of England making these remarks - that their marriage will not last above seven years; hardly the position one would expect from a senior member of the church in which William and Kate will marry, is it?

I wonder how many other ‘ordinary’ couples’ relationships he has openly suggested will not last more than seven years, even if he may well have thought it?

But he reserves his true bile for William’s parents, observing that, “I managed to avoid the last disaster in slow motion between Big Ears and the Porcelain Doll, and hope to avoid this one too.”
Let me remind you again that the author of these remarks is a Bishop in the Church of England; the church of which the Queen is the Supreme Governor, as all her predecessors have been since Henry VIII’s split with Rome in the early Sixteenth Century. So isn’t ‘Pete’ Broadbent – who was appointed to his bishopric by the very Queen he effects to despise – nothing more than a hypocrite?

Because, if he feels so strongly about his republicanism, I’m sure he could easily resign his episcopacy, go back to calling himself ‘Pete’ without it being a glaring and grating affectation and find himself a more egalitarian church in which to worship.

Or could it be that he enjoys the ‘fawning deferential nonsense’ shown to him as a bishop of the established church and so clings on to his position for personal aggrandisement?

I don’t pretend to know the answer, but I do know that peevish personal attacks such as Broadbent’s recent splenetic nonsense, serves only to display the bankruptcy of the republican argument, so I suppose as an ardent monarchist, I should thank him for his contribution to the royal cause.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I could not agree more and trust this appalling hypocrite will resign forthwith. How can any one take seriously a man who has taken an oath to the Queen and writes in this puerile , adolescent fashion about the royal family.

Anastasia F-B said...

An excellent piece; thanks for drawing my attention to it. There are so many aspects to this that I find appalling, not least Citizen Pete’s dismissive and snobbish condescension.

I so agree with the other contributor.

Outed said...

http://mrishmael.blogspot.com/

i albion said...

He couldn't resign ,it would mean he would have to work for a living.