Where Rowan went wrong

Rowan Williams will step down at the end of 2012, having been Primate of All England for a decade. It is already clear that his term of office has been disastrous. Church people have affection for him, respect even. He is not blamed for the disaster, since he is only doing a job he was asked to do — not one he sought. He was a bishop of the Church in Wales almost by accident, because of his academic fame, not because he had ever wanted to be a career bishop.

Nobody has accused him of ambition, though there is perhaps a little vanity there — about his poetry and his interest in the remoter depths of philosophy and theology. But he seems a lot more genuine than, for example, the disappointingly flaky Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, or the invariably grandstanding Archbishop of York, John Sentamu — and he possesses a spiritual sincerity, which draws on his unpretentious, compelling concern for the disadvantaged.