So his eminence Rick Warren issues an, ahem, “encylical video” to condemn Uganda’s proposed anti-homosexual act. And then the Vatican officially seems to criticize it, but dares not speak its name. And now, buried in the middle of an interview with George Pitcher of the Telegraph, conducted over a cup of tea at his palace in Canterbury, come these remarks from Dr. Rowan Williams:

“Overall, the proposed legislation is of shocking severity and I can’t see how
it could be supported by any Anglican who is committed to what the Communion
has said in recent decades,” says Dr Williams. “Apart from invoking the
death penalty, it makes pastoral care impossible – it seeks to turn pastors
into informers.” He adds that the Anglican Church in Uganda opposes the
death penalty but, tellingly, he notes that its archbishop, Henry Orombi,
who boycotted the Lambeth Conference last year, “has not taken a position on
this bill”.

Shocking severity, indeed. But of course it would be impolite for the ABC actually to declare his own position on the act. Not in this setting:

We’re sitting in the bay window of the 11th-century drawing room of the
Archbishop’s Palace in Canterbury. Watching the winter dusk envelop the
cathedral, it feels a long way from the pressures of London. “It is
different here,” reflects Dr Rowan Williams. “When people live in
human-sized communities, they behave rather more, well, humanly.”

Which might not, one supposes, be the case in Uganda. Tut tut.