CofE appoints first female Archbishop of Canterbury

Dame Sarah Mullally has been nominated as the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury.

After months of deliberation, the Crown Nominations Commission has named the 63-year-old as its preferred candidate to succeed Justin Welby as the leader of the Church of England and Anglican Communion.

The Archbishop of Canterbury-designate is the first woman to be appointed to the role in the CofE’s nearly 500-year history.

Controversy

Before her ordination in 2001, Dame Sarah worked in the NHS, becoming Chief Nursing Officer for England in 1999. She has been Bishop of London for seven years.

She led the Living and in Love and Faith (LLF) Next Step Group which promoted LLF resources and called into question the Church’s traditional teaching on “identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage”.

Following a 2023 bishops’ report that recommended allowing clergy to bless same-sex couples, Dame Sarah said “stable, faithful relationships” between two men or two women could be blessed – rejecting historic Christian teaching.

Dame Sarah is expected to be installed at Canterbury Cathedral in March. She is married and has two adult children.

Welby

Her predecessor, Justin Welby, recently dismissed his confidence in the Bible’s teaching on sexual ethics as ‘misplaced’.

When challenged on the denomination’s decision to approve same-sex blessings while refusing to allow ‘gay marriage’, Welby maintained that it was “proper” to have standalone services in churches to bless the union of same-sex couples.

He continued: “The use of the word marriage is much more complicated. There is a very clear biblical definition of marriage, which in the mouth of Jesus [is] clearly between a man and a woman.”

However, the former Archbishop of Canterbury went on to claim that ‘faithful and stable’ same-sex relationships are “a huge blessing” to those involved and for society as a whole.