Quotes from Rowan Williams

My visit this autumn is an opportunity to continue that rich tradition of visits between Canterbury and Rome.

Even when I was Archbishop of Wales and working with new bishops, I used to say, not realising quite how true it was, 'One of the things you will do as a bishop is disappoint people'.

Let's cut to the chase, the sharia controversy. I don't think I, or my colleagues, predicted just how enormous the reaction would be. I failed to find the right words. I succeeded in confusing people. I've made mistakes - that's probably one of them.

In the context of interfaith encounter, we need to bring to the surface how our actual beliefs shape what we do - not simply to agree that kindness is better than cruelty.

We are called to show utter commitment to the God who is revealed in Jesus and to all those to whom His invitation is addressed.

I do feel that federation, loose parallel processes, are less than we've got, less than we could have and, in the very long run, less than what God wants in the Church.

The world's creation has a beginning from the world's point of view, not from God's.

A flourishing, morally credible media is a vital component in the maintenance of genuinely public talk, argument about common good.

I think there is a great deal of interest still in the Christian faith.

Economists are coming to acknowledge that measures of national wealth and poverty in terms strictly of average income tell you little that is significant of the health or viability of a society.

The planet should not be used as a warehouse of resources to serve humanity's selfishness

If there is one thing I long for above all else, it's that the years to come may see Christianity in this country able again to capture the imagination of our culture.

I am pleased that Prince Charles and Mrs Camilla Parker Bowles have decided to take this important step.

To help the poor to a capacity for action and liberty is something essential for one's own health as well as theirs: there is a needful gift they have to offer which cannot be offered so long as they are confined by poverty.

Christian teaching about sex is not a set of isolated prohibitions; it is an integral part of what the Bible has to say about living in such a way that our lives communicate the character of God.

We shall not find life by refusing to let go of our precious, protected selves.

I have to go on being a priest and bishop, that is, to celebrate God and what God has done in Jesus, and to offer in God's name whatever I can discern of God's perspective on the world around - something which involves both challenge and comfort.

Serving democracy and nourishing the common good is, for the media, something that requires not only attacking corrupt secrecies in a society, but also defending non-corrupt communication.

In a spiritually sensitive culture, then, it might well be that age is something to be admired or envied.

To conclude: good journalism is one of the models of good conversation and communication in the wider social context.

Whether something is old-fashioned or not doesn't resolve the question of whether it's true or not. I can see the temptation of simply thinking, 'Well, there's a cultural mainstream which flows neatly in one direction. You just align with it'. And that really won't do.

T]here is no goodness that is not bodily and realistic and local.

the new humanity that is created around Jesus is not a humanity that is always going to be successful and in control of things, but a humanity that can reach out its hand from the depths of chaos, to be touched by the hand of God.

Our present ecological crisis, the biggest single practical threat to our human existence in the middle to long term, has, religious people would say, a great deal to do with our failure to think of the world as existing in relation to the mystery of God, not just as a huge warehouse of stuff to be used for our convenience.