Former nurse Sarah Mullally was officially confirmed on Wednesday as the first female Archbishop of Canterbury, becoming the first woman to lead the Church of England, the mother church of the 85-million-strong global Anglican Communion.
At a historic service at London’s St Paul’s Cathedral, the 63-year-old legally assumed the role ahead of her formal installation, or enthronement, at Canterbury Cathedral on March 25. The Church of England said Mullally will begin her full programme of public duties after that date.
The ceremony was briefly disrupted when a heckler interrupted proceedings and was escorted from the cathedral. It was not immediately clear what was said.
Mullally’s appointment has prompted a backlash from some conservative members of the Anglican Communion, particularly in Africa. The Church of Uganda described the decision last October as “sad news,” reflecting long-running divisions between conservative churches and more liberal Western counterparts, especially over women clergy and LGBTQ issues.
Ahead of the service, Mullally said she hoped to lead with “calmness, consistency and compassion” during what she described as “times of division and uncertainty for our fractured world.”
“It is an extraordinary and humbling privilege to have been called to be the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury,” she said in a statement.
The Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, second in rank within the Anglican hierarchy said he hoped that as Mullally took up the “baton,” the church would learn from its “past failings” and become “simpler, humbler and bolder.”
‘Hope’
Mullally was named in October as the successor to Justin Welby, who announced his resignation last January following the fallout from an abuse scandal.
Welby stepped down after a report found the Church of England had covered up a serial abuse case from the 1970s and that he failed to report the allegations to authorities when they came to his attention in 2013. An independent inquiry said John Smyth, a lawyer who ran evangelical summer camps in the 1970s and 1980s, abused as many as 130 boys and young men.
The Church of England became Britain’s established church following King Henry VIII’s break from the Roman Catholic Church in the 1530s. The British monarch is its supreme governor, while the Archbishop of Canterbury is regarded as the spiritual leader of Anglicans worldwide.
Married with two children, Mullally worked for more than three decades in Britain’s National Health Service, rising to become chief nursing officer for England in 1999. Ordained as a priest in 2002, she was appointed the first female Bishop of London in 2018, just four years after the church approved women bishops following years of internal debate.
Mullally has described herself as a feminist and has called the Church of England’s 2023 decision to allow priests to bless same-sex couples “a moment of hope for the church,” while acknowledging continuing differences. She told UK media on Wednesday that she was committed to speaking out against misogyny wherever she encountered it.
There were an estimated one million regular Anglican worshippers in Britain in 2024. Globally, the church says it has around 85 million followers across more than 165 countries.
AFP
