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We’ve just had our annual Clergy Conference in the Green Hotel in Kinross. The worst thing about it was that – taking account of vacancies and long term illness – we were missing about one third of our group of stipendiary clergy. For a small diocese, that’s really significant in terms of our resources. But in every other respect, it was probably one of the best

We began with Professor Mona Siddiqui talking about the place of faith in the public square. Mona is so generous with her time. Our clergy enjoyed a stimulating conversation with her, We then welcomed a return visit from David Runcorn under the title ‘Living with Resilience’. David has an extraordinary empathy – certainly with our clergy. We went away stimulated and encouraged

Above … Dean Kenny Rathband and Canon Dom Ind in group discussion. Rev Richard Evans of St Andrews, St Andrews who led the music in our worship

Time moves swiftly at Christmas – I forgot to put up my sermon from Midnight Mass at the Cathedral

We’ve been making real efforts … Casting the Net and the Mission Action Planning in congregations are signs of our efforts to become more missional. Or perhaps we might describe it as moving from a church defined by membership to one defined by discipleship. And if we move in that direction we may also become a church with a sense of our vocation …

So it’s encouraging to see people giving expression to a call to ministry,

Just before Christmas, we celebrated the licensing of Kate Sainsbury as a Lay Reader in the Strathearn Group of congregations – that’s Crieff, Comrie and Lochearnhead. It was a congregational event. That’s a sign of Kate’s vocation being recognised within those congregations, And it was a diocesan event because so many people are involved in the training process.

So where next?

I know that I have written quite a bit about Uganda. But it was the kind of experience which you need to try and share. And here is something which makes a different kind of connection

Over Christmas, I’ve been reading Brian Walker’s book, ‘From Partition to Peace’. It tells the story of Ireland since Partition with a particular focus on what happened to the southern Irish Protestant minority. Inasmuch as I have a community of origin, this is it and there is growing interest in them at present as a piece of ‘forgotten history’

I can remember as a teenager in the 1960’s a point at which I began to believe that violence was coming – as it did from 1969 onwards, Strident certainties sounded ever more hollow. Brian Walker then charts the journey to a new kind of Ireland north and south – more open and more inclusive. That movement happens on many levels – he connects it to political movements in other parts of Europe where the frozen settlements of the 1920’s were breaking down. It’s political and religious. I think he could have given more emphasis to two among many other factors – the status of women in Ireland linked to the fall in the birth rate and the growth of secularisation,

In Uganda I found myself in the presence of a strongly-expressed orthodoxy about the ‘evil of homosexuality’. For me as for many other people, human sexuality issues are ‘work in progress’. But the word ‘evil’ doesn’t help us to answer complex questions, I can understand the more obvious reasons why they are where they are – the legacy of the East African revival, the pressure of hard-edged Islam moving south in Africa, the need for a ‘binding vision’ in a complex situation.

But even a fleeting visit was enough to see that change is coming. Uganda is experiencing economic growth – from a very low base; oil has been discovered and will probably lead both to more corruption and more prosperity; the next generation is becoming more independent-minded; secularisation will creep in on the back of prosperity.

The new Archbishop, Archbishop Stanley, will need all the skills and spiritual insight which he can muster to provide the kind of leadership which is needed. As for all of us, it gets more difficult and the hill gets steeper. But that is the reality of our calling.

I went with Canon Janet to Makerere University and had the opportunity of sitting down with the Chaplaincy Team to find out how ministry is for them. It turned out to be like a little peep into the future – a world where young adults don’t automatically accept the prevailing orthodoxies of life, where authority is questioned ….. Needless to say it seemed reassuringly familiar to me.

Then I was completely astonished when the Chaplain, Dr Francis Ebong, asked me, ‘So how is Mission 21 going these days?’. So we explored that a bit and I checked some more with the neighbours at Blogstead when I got home. When the Anglican Consultative Council met in Scotland, there was a presentation on Mission 21 – and an invitation to other provinces to explore whether it might be adapted for use in other contexts, As a result of that, Francis and others had visited Scotland and made a real connection. I have subsequently been talking to Gill Young and to Revd Dean Fostekew who both visited Uganda as in the development of this partnership. Gill has kindly provided a report of the work done at that time.

So we had an ‘on the ground’ missional link with Uganda and we let that slip?

And then Janet and I went to meet and have lunch with the local Alicia, Joram Kahenano, Diocesan Secretary in the Diocese of Kampala. Like many of us, he was trying to instil good and consistent processes at the heart of diocesan life, He was also special because he is a former Deputy Governor of the Bank of Uganda. So we had a fascinating discussion about the future – the economic future of Uganda, the changes which even the beginnings of economic development may bring and the impact of that on the church. It was a great privilege to meet him.

Poppy hasn’t made an appearance here for a while. Now 17 years old – a remarkable age for a Burmese cat – she felt that the time had come to follow Nelson Mandela’s example and make a gentle withdrawal from public life.

So here she is in Blogstead Na Mara, Donegal – exhausted by the effort of updating her Facebook page and carefully placed within toasting distance of the wood-burning stove. She still has her insulin injections night and morning and has a close and personal relationship with Harvey, her personal physician back in Perth. He thinks that she is now deaf – and because she can’t hear herself she has become noisy. It’s a sort of feline Beethoven thing.

As I said elsewhere, I was treated as an honoured guest. The gentle skirmishing about whether or not I was an archbishop and about the collegiality of bishops in Scotland was neither here nor there in the face of the poverty of Kalerwe. Indeed the worse the poverty became, the more embarrassing the honour with which I was treated. At least the blog gives me the chance of sharing the experience beyond the level of ‘the Primus went to Uganda – I wonder what it was like’

I stayed an extra day – partly because of the St Andrews event in London on the way home. It proved to be the most interesting of the whole visit.

Janet and I went to Kalerwe – it’s an outreach ministry of the Diocese of Kampala. The rural poor are squeezing into Kampala and occupying anywhere they can find. This is former marsh land become shanty town. It floods much of the time – hence the rubber boots. No electricity, no sewers or water, no medical care – in fact nothing very much of anything.

They greeted me and showed me round as if they had nothing else to do. The clergy were wonderful – upbeat and enthusiastic about what they were doing. They took me into church and we sang. I visited the nine classroom school – nine classrooms and no furniture. ‘Do you get a salary from the government?’ I naively asked the Principal. ‘Whatever the children bring ……’ was the answer.

You need to see this kind of place. It leaves you helpless, confused and upset. There is almost nothing you can do so you have to detach yourself in some way. The strange thing is that it is humbling but not depressing – because there is some kind of extraordinary exuberance in the people who work there. I met more joy there than in most of the rest of what I saw.

This is the grave of Bishop Hannington which lies just outside the west door of the Cathedral. In 1882 he heard of the murder of two missionaries on the shores of Lake Victoria and decided to offer himself for service. He and his companions were murdered in 1885 – among the first martyrs of the Ugandan Church. The tradition of missionary service which he embodied lives strongly in Uganda.

This is Isabel Booth-Clibborn whom I met the morning after I arrived. She carries a name famous in the missionary history of the Church of England – her late father, Stanley, was Bishop of Manchester, her mother Anne married Robin Boyd, a former missionary of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland in India. Robin was Best Man at my parents’ wedding and is godfather to my brother. You’ll find Anne and Robin at St John’s, Princes Street.

And this is Janet Trail who is a member of our congregation at North Berwick. She has given a lifetime of service to overseas mission and has been supported by our Provincial Overseas Committee.

Isabel gave me the opportunity of sharing in a meeting of.CMS Mission Partners with Philip Mountstephen, newly-appointed head of CMS in England. I thought they were a deeply-impressive group of people – gathering community, building schools and hospitals …. It was humbling to be with them

‘You must let us through. The Primus of Scotland is on this bus!’. We were on our way to the Enthronement Service and the voice was that of Canon Janet Muhindo. I was being treated as an honoured guest and Janet was assigned to me as my Chaplain and ‘minder’. She is retired from her ministry as Children’s Worker for the Church of Uganda. We got on ‘like a house on fire’ apart from the constant ‘No I can’t let you carry my bag’ conversation’ – a problem which remained unresolved throughout my stay!

I sort of knew it would be different. ‘Canon Janet will meet you in the VIP Lounge at Entebbe Airport’. My normal form at Edinburgh Airport is to wave my bus pass at the 747 bus so that I can retrieve my car from the free parking at Ferrytoll. Here I found myself being treated as if I represented something significant. After making my way in secular Scotland, it came as a bit of a shock. I shall have to find a event at which I can appropriately wear the tee shirt with which I was presented. It bears the legend ‘Thank you for His Grace Henry Orombi’

But of course there need to be checks and balances in everything. Having left my Polo behind in Scotland, I watched the new Archbishop being presented with a new car by the President. No doubt he needs something a bit more substantial and with more ground clearance than the Polo. But I did wonder about that ‘speaking truth to power’ thing.

There are of course two key issues which stand between us and the Church of Uganda. The first obviously is how we respond to human sexuality issues. They probably are not aware that our church actually has a diversity of response. But I doubt if even the most traditionalist and conservative strands of SEC life would want to sign up to the Ugandan approach.

The second issue is that of authority – ecclesiastical polity to give it the posh name. And I believe that the two issues are inextricably linked. The Church of Uganda speaks unmistakably clearly because bishops exercise a authoritative leadership on behalf of the whole. Our situation is very different. I cannot simply look into my own heart and declare that what I find there is the view of the SEC. The cost of that – as Laurene implies – is that we often don’t speak clearly or respond quickly. We believe that our College of Bishops should be …. collegial. And we believe in careful synodical process which aims to ensure that what is stated as the ‘mind of the church’ is nothing less than that.

I’ll explain more about what actually happened. But this polity issue is fundamental to what has happened in the Anglican Communion. I’m thinking particularly about the suggestions that ‘commitments were made and not delivered’ – particularly around the Primates’ Meeting. The reality I think is that different parts of the Communion have been operating with very different understandings of authority and leadership. And the effect of that has been to produce mutual incomprehension and misunderstanding at the moments when it mattered most.

You may agree with that .. or not. But I think that one of the unintended effects of it – and this partly explains why we decided that I should accept the invitation – is that we see each other as either impossibly liberal or impossibly conservative. It’s always going to be more subtle than that. Certainly more subtle in Scotland and maybe – just maybe – more subtle in Uganda.