New ABC
We have a new Archbishop of Canterbury - Dame Sarah Mullally, Bishop of London.
What are people's thoughts?
How will this appointment affect women's ministry within the CofE and in the wider communion? How does it work when you have large numbers of people who don't think you're even a priest, let alone the Archbishop?
What are people's thoughts?
How will this appointment affect women's ministry within the CofE and in the wider communion? How does it work when you have large numbers of people who don't think you're even a priest, let alone the Archbishop?
Comments
Strangely enough I was at a meeting just 10 days ago where she spoke. There was tea and coffee before the meeting and, when she walked in, I thought: "I know that face - but who is she?". I don't know all the Bishops of the Church in Wales so I mistakenly thought it must be one of them!
It's a "brave" choice ...I don't know how it will work out. At least she is young enough to have several years in post.
She said when she became Archbishop of London ""If our churches are going to be more relevant to our communities, that means increasing churches that are led by priests that are women, who come from black, Asian and minority ethnic groups,"
She was right.
"Archbishop Sarah is a late ordinand who before ordination was Chief Nursing Officer in the Department of Health. She trained for the ministry at the South East Institute for Theologian Education and served her first curacy at Battersea Fields in Southwark Diocese from 2001 to 2006. From 2006 to 2012 she was Team Rector at Sutton in Southwark Diocese. From 2012 to 2015 she was Canon Residentiary and Canon Treasurer at Salisbury Cathedral before taking up her role in 2015 as Suffragan Bishop of Crediton in the Diocese of Exeter. Bishop Sarah was installed as the 133rd Bishop of London at St Paul’s Cathedral on 12th May 2018."
Those who don't may well find this too bitter a pill to swallow, in which case they will have to make some difficult decisions, especially if they are stipendiary clergy.
Quite how the very conservative groups elsewhere in the Anglican Communion will deal with her remains to be seen.
(Although a Spectator article, this isn't far-right or -phobic garbage).
AC?
Anglican Communion maybe.
Anglo Catholic no - the current leadership of the trad ACs are very friendly with and used to working with her. They’ll be hoping for business as usual and will probably get it.
It’s the conservative evangelicals that are worth watching
It’s the busy evangelical shacks with all the money that he needs to worry about.
(In CofE circles I mean)
However she's only officially being "enthroned" (what a terrible word) next month.
No worries - given the nature of the event though it could well have been either! Hence asking.
That's okay. I saw the thread title and thought "Who would want to change the alphabet? I mean, it is already in alphabetical order!" In fairness to me, I have just now started drinking my pot of oolong. It may take a few minutes before the benefit to my thinking process kicks in.
So is an Anglo Catholic communicant in the Anglican Communion in Canada an ACCACC? [gets coat]
Just out of interest, I looked up the 587 churches in England which the pressure group WATCH* (Women And The Church) lists as being those who restrict, limit, or reject the ministry of ordained women, and not only that of ordained women...
In this Diocese, 11 are members of The Society of SS Wilfrid & Hilda - the traditionalist Anglo-Catholic parishes - and 5 are under the episcopal care of +Ebbsfleet and are in the conservative-evangelical camp.
It is true, as @betjemaniac says, that those A-C parishes co-exist quite happily with the Diocesan Bishop and most of the rest of the Diocese. Two of the conservative Ebbsfleet churches, however, are the wealthiest in the Diocese, and have huge (by Anglican standards) congregations.
They are indeed the ones to watch, but their total defection is, I think (FWIW) unlikely, given that they already have their own alternative episcopal oversight.
*Which I have just joined, BTW.
Hmmm .... haven't we all .... would you care to expand on this, please?
@Boogie I am sure there was no slight intended towards childless/childfree women, but childfree women in particular have enough of a hard time within the Church without suggesting that motherhood makes someone better at being an Archbishop. Nobody would suggest that a male bishop without children would make an inferior Archbishop compared to one with children.
Speaking personally, I am surprised that they would go for a woman simply because being the first would be an extra poisoned chalice on top of the already poisoned chalice that is being ABC - but my impression of ++Mullally is that she's a pretty unimpressive neoliberal but equally has nothing about her to scare the horses. I don't see that as a benefit, but I can see the appeal from a managerial perspective. I would certainly suggest that she's nowhere near as progressive as people might expect a female bishop to be, and that's probably why she was seen as being safe enough for the job - she's not in any way a radical but very establishment-friendly.
Those paying attention to the circumstances that led to the tragic death of Fr Alan Griffin think that stb ++Sarah is implicated in them. There is also a small but vocal group still furious about the measures taken to protect public health during a global pandemic, but I'm rather less convinced by them.
I mean, nobody has forced her to take the job!
I am confused by this the coroner appear to suggest both that no investigation took place, and that an investigation found no evidence.
Is it that investigation was delayed, and then subsequently cleared him posthumously ?
But Boogie didn't suggest that motherhood would make ++Mullally a better archbishop. She just said "Wonderful!" When someone who I can identify with in some way achieves a position like this, I feel the same way.
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Question out of my ignorance -- how long can that alternative oversight hold out? Do they essentially have a church within the church, with their own little line of succession stemming only from male bishops that they can just maintain indefinitely?
Question out of my ignorance -- how long can that alternative oversight hold out? Do they essentially have a church within the church, with their own little line of succession stemming only from male bishops that they can just maintain indefinitely?[/quote]
I'm not sure, though I take your point. I can only speak of that whereof I know, but there are some A-C churches which have gone back to the mainstream in recent years, deciding to eschew the alternative episcopal oversight.
The (very short) list of 'alternative episcopal oversight' bishops has also changed lately, with replacements coming forward for those who retire. For how long this can go on is anyone's guess!
I did say that I realised that no slight towards childless/childfree women was intended.
For clarification, I don't believe that it's an official stance wrt trans women - but they have allowed transphobia to flourish nonetheless. It's very much a "liberal but not progressive" group if that makes sense.
Basically yes. The newest flying bishops are of a (young) age where they’ll easily still be going maybe 10 years *after* this ABC reaches retirement age.
+Oswestry and +Richborough are 20 years off retirement. In fact, if I were a conspiracy theorist, I would suggest that the establishment has ensured young flying bishops in place (+Fulham is older) precisely to help the traditionalist catholics get through a female ABC at this point…
Agreed, but she will still need a thick skin.
Out of curiosity is there much of a history of people turning down the appointment?
An interesting view - I wouldn't be surprised to learn that you're actually right...
I think the new ABC will have a lot more to contend with than the traditionalist Anglo-Catholics. Without wishing to be brutal, many of those traditionalists are getting on in years, and there may well be more churches leaving the Society (but retaining Catholic-style worship etc.) as time goes by. I doubt if Our Place will be one, but you never know.
I really didn’t think it would happen this time round, but now it has I’m looking back at some of the deck shuffling of the last year or two (or three) in the traditionalist Catholic world, and can’t believe I didn’t suss it at the time.
Some one (or some people) have been very clever here if I am right.
God works in a mysterious way...
A lot of the traditionalist A-C parishes do work very hard to keep the rumour of God alive, so to speak, even against great odds (deprived parishes, tiny ageing congregations, lack of £££ etc. etc.), and the Dead Horse issue is often of little concern to many - not all, of course - of the laity.
If the new ABC keeps these Places in the fold, however, all well and good, but ISTM that there is a great deal of goodwill on the part of the traditionalists, which is not often noted or reported upon.
That sounds like actual mutual flourishing
@Pomona thank you for the info on WATCH.
I think it's a perfectly good word, myself.
Do we know what her theology is like? Wikipedia quotes the Financial Times as saying she was "seen as a theological liberal," but I don't know what they meant by that, nor by whom she was seen that way at the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Mullally#Views