In the constitutional arrangements of England, the Church and the State have the same cultural norms and expectations for their nominal heads, the Sovereign and the Archbishop of Canterbury. To put it analogically, the Queen is to the State as the ABC is the Church. Walter Bagehot, in The English Constitution, (second edition, London, 1872), wrote trenchantly that "...the sovereign has, under a constitutional monarchy such as ours, three rights--the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, and the right to warn. And a king of great sense and sagacity would want no others" (p. 67).

The same three rights, and only these three, belong to the Archbishop of Canterbury: to be consulted, to encourage, and to warn. If one pays careful attention to the writings and speeches of Rowan Williams over the past several years, one will note that he consistently denies the sort of executive or juridical authority accorded to other prelates such as the pope. In the English system, the ABC is not the Prime Minister, but the Sovereign. Williams does not believe it would be legitimate for him to arrogate to himself any authority beyond those three monarchical rights of consultation, encouragement, and warning. Nor does he want them, for any rights beyond these three would confer on him coercive power, and he is averse to violence of any kind. The constitutional monarchy in England is peculiar in that its Sovereign has only nonviolent rights while at the same time being the head of the Armed Forces. Coercive and war-making powers, while exercised in the name of the monarch, are actually wielded by the Government--the Prime Minister and Parliament.

The Archbishop of Canterbury does not currently have the equivalent of a Prime Minister, though he does have a Parliament in General Synod. Nor does it appear that the ABC would want a PM-style executive. What the ABC does want is something that England itself currently lacks: a written constitution, or Covenant, that would serve to regulate the relationships amongst the Anglican Communion's constituent parts in ways that are consonant with the Gospel, which is noncoercive at heart. The Covenant, if successful, will need no war-making powers, because it will embody the Gospel of Peace, which has Communion with the Father through the Son in the power of the Spirit as its origin and goal.

Thus, conservative members of The Episcopal Church and the wider Anglican Communion who want Rowan Williams to act not as a constitutional monarch but as a prime minister will always be disappointed. The Archbishop has made it very clear that his role is limited to consultation, encouragement, and warning. He has exercised his rights to their fullest. We cannot expect more from him and his office than his office has, in fact, conferred upon him. It does not matter how many crises the Anglican Communion faces: the ABC will not presume to exercise powers he does not have, and in any event, does not--and according to Bagehot, if he is "of great sense and sagacity," should not--want.