Exhaustive pleasantness

The artilce below appears in today's Irish Times.

The unbearable politeness of being at Lambeth Conferenc

Despite being at war the brethren bare teeth only in cheery greeting to each other, writes Patsy McGarry .

THE UNFLINCHING pleasantness of everyone is as exhausting as these hot, humid July days in Canterbury. Because, even if the world's Anglicans are perceived by some to be at war with one another, it is such a lovely war.

After all, who can sustain murderous thoughts for long when confronted continuously with nothing more sinister than a seemingly endless parade of whitest teeth bared only in cheery greeting. The exhausting part is that this is expected to be reciprocated in kind, however agitated one's inner, slavering demons.

It is the Anglican way, this wearing down of rigid position through the application of the relentlessly pleasant until an acceptable level of fudge has been arrived at. And it is what is happening once again at this Lambeth Conference. That is how this most disparate worldwide Communion has survived so much. Not least women.

Yet there have been those few moments of blessed relief too. Such as the refreshingly candid bishop who earlier this week and, in private, on seeing again the omnipresent Bishop Gene Robinson, that actively gay man whose ordination precipitated the current crisis within Anglicanism, wondered openly, "has he not been shot yet?"

Or the sweet lady on the "Inclusivity" stall at the conference's Marketplace Centre who, curious about the blue ribbon attached to one man's identity tag, recoiled in abject but utterly spontaneous horror when told it designated "media".

There are, it seems, even among Anglicans, limits to what can or ought to be embraced. Media are among the "fallen too far". And, as if to illustrate this, the fourth estate has been accommodated at the farthest reaches of Kent University campus where the conference is taking place. Events involving the bishops are at the other end. Not that it matters, as media is barred from all.

Indeed, and possibly as a further indication of its status on the part of this conference, the media has been located in the Darwin College, where the restaurant is called Origins (and, presumably, they eat forerunners of the species), while all press conferences take place in the attached "Missing Link" building.

The "survival of the fittest" theme may be what is expected where media is concerned but it has no place among those whose priority is deepening relationships with disagreeable people rather than devouring them. Something clearly, it seems, the media monster doesn't get.

The fault, dear Brutus, lies ... where?