Why is the Church of England Silent (Again)?

The Catholic Church has made all the running on the opposition to the Human Fertilisation & Embryology Bill. I may have missed it, but so far I have heard barely a squeak from the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Church of England on it. Do they not have a strong and trenchant view on one of the great moral dilemmas of our age?

The Archbishop is all too keen to share with us his bizarrely favourable views on Sharia Law, which most people regard as at best an irrelevance and at worst as (fill in the blank), yet he chooses to keep his own counsel on the rights and wrongs of embryo research. A Google search shows that the last time Rowan Williams said anything meaningful on the issue was two months ago, and that was a four paragraph statement. Perhaps he has said more and it hasn't been reported, but if that's the case, doesn't it tell you all you need to know about the Church of England in that it has ceded this issue to the Catholics and let them run with it?

The Church of England, like Sharia Law, is becoming an irrelevance to many people in this country.