Bruised through fresh occasions, the Church of England has simply entered a brand new generation. Dame Sarah Mullally’s appointment as the primary feminine archbishop of Canterbury is momentous. However Mullally has a huge problem forward of her in therapeutic the injuries that afflict her church. Restoring consider within the church’s senior management and fighting the church from fracturing over problems with sexuality and gender shall be on the best of her schedule.
Mullally’s appointment comes at the heels of a duration of disaster within the church. The previous archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, was once compelled to renounce following revelations about how he and different senior church leaders treated ancient circumstances of kid abuse.
Mullally made transparent that her first job shall be to revive self belief within the church’s senior control and safeguarding processes: “As archbishop, my commitment will be to ensure that we continue to listen to survivors, care for the vulnerable, and foster a culture of safety and wellbeing for all.”
As the primary feminine archbishop of Canterbury, Mullally faces a singular set of demanding situations. A former leader nursing officer for England, Mullally was once probably the most first ladies to be made a senior bishop in a diocese when she was once made bishop of London in 2018. Whilst many within the Church of England have welcomed ladies monks and bishops, some – specifically at the traditionalist Evangelical and Catholic wings of the church – proceed to oppose ladies’s ordination.
Mullally’s function in guiding the worldwide Anglican circle of relatives could also be difficult through the truth that a lot of its member church buildings don’t settle for ladies bishops and monks. Senior Anglican leaders from Africa and Asia have brazenly criticised her appointment, each as a result of she is a girl and as a result of her perspectives on same-sex marriage.
Mullally can have to check out and construct bridges with those that oppose ladies monks and bishops – and who thereby deny her proper to carry the place of work of archbishop – whilst assuring them that the church can nonetheless supply appropriate provisions for them.
Management tradition
Along side restoring consider within the church’s safeguarding processes, Mullally will have to additionally heal divisions inside the church’s hierarchy over management tradition. Within the weeks main as much as Welby’s resignation, each he and the archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, have been accused of the usage of “coercive language” through the bishop of Newcastle, Helen-Ann Hartley.
In step with Hartley, each archbishops confirmed a “complete lack of awareness of how power dynamics operate in the life of the church”. Mullally is now able to inspire reconciliation inside the church’s hierarchy, and to guide it in some way that fosters mutual recognize and responsibility.
Mullally will have to additionally inspire extra other folks to sign up for the priesthood, particularly a few of the under-40s. Key right here shall be attracting new vocations now not handiest to the parish device, however to “non-stipendary” kinds of ministry – monks who hang down common secular jobs whilst serving to out in native church buildings. Mullally could have a singular benefit on this recognize, for the reason that she was once a non-stipendary priest previous to resigning her publish as leader nursing officer.
Whilst general church attendance has declined in fresh many years, the fad has reversed relatively in the previous few years. In 2024, some 582,000 other folks continuously attended Sunday services and products, up from 574,000 in 2023. Mullally’s job shall be to assist foster this enlargement, whilst discovering new techniques of speaking to a radically converting society.
Identical-sex marriage
Lately, the Church of England does now not habits same-sex marriages, nor does it permit its clergy to go into them. In 2017, on the other hand, it introduced Residing in Love and Religion – a challenge to “listen, learn and respond to changing views” on gender, marriage, relationships and sexual identification.
In mild of this, the Space of Bishops – probably the most church’s primary techniques of presidency – voted in 2023 to permit the clergy to supply prayers of blessing for same-sex {couples}. Mullally was once probably the most bishops who voted for this transfer.
Many within the church, together with a number of bishops, are pushing for the church to move additional and habits same-sex marriages. A ballot of clergy taken in 2023 through the Occasions published that 49.2% of Church of England clergy could be keen to habits same-sex weddings. Others, regardless that, oppose any exchange to the present doctrine, arguing that one of these transfer would contradict each the Bible and custom.
The Church of England’s Space of Bishops voted in 2023 to permit clergy to bless, however now not habits, same-sex marriages.
Jeff Gilbert/Alamy
As archbishop, how Mullally steers the church in this factor shall be probably the most defining traits of her tenure. However she herself can not exchange church doctrine. Handiest the Normal Synod – the church’s leader governing frame – has the ability to try this.
Including an additional stage of complexity is that, as the brand new archbishop of Canterbury, Mullally could also be the non secular chief of the 85 million-strong international Anglican communion.
Found in 165 international locations, the Anglican communion is composed of 42 member church buildings. A few of these, together with the Scottish and Canadian Episcopal Church buildings, already allow same-sex marriage. Others, on the other hand, oppose it. Laurent Mbanda, the archbishop of Rwanda, mentioned Mullally had “repeatedly promoted unbiblical and revisionist teachings regarding marriage and sexual morality”.
Will have to the Church of England – because the “mother church” of the Anglican communion –transfer in opposition to same-sex marriage throughout Mullally’s time in place of work, it’s conceivable that the already deeply divided Anglican communion may fracture irrevocably.
