On Tuesday 12 November the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, announced his intention of resigning within the wake of the independent review by Keith Makin into the abuse carried out on this country, Zimbabwe and South Africa by the late John Smyth.
The Archbishop’s statement declared:
“Having sought the gracious permission of His Majesty The King, I actually have decided to resign as Archbishop of Canterbury.
“The Makin Review has exposed the long-maintained conspiracy of silence in regards to the heinous abuses of John Smyth.
“When I used to be informed in 2013 and told that police had been notified, I believed wrongly that an appropriate resolution would follow.
“It could be very clear that I have to take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and retraumatising period between 2013 and 2024.
“It is my duty to honour my Constitutional and church responsibilities, so exact timings shall be decided once a review of mandatory obligations has been accomplished, including those in England and within the Anglican Communion.”
It is vital to notice that the Archbishop of Canterbury continues to be in post. He has said that he’ll resign sooner or later at a date yet to be determined and it isn’t clear when that shall be. Further information in regards to the timing of his resignation has not yet been released.
What is obvious, nonetheless, is that after his resignation has formally taken place via an instrument of resignation submitted to the King, the Archdiocese of Canterbury shall be declared vacant by the King via an Order in Council, and a process to appoint the following Archbishop of Canterbury will happen. This process may have two parts to it.
The alternative of candidates by the Crown Nominations Commission
The first part is a process to decide on two agreed candidates to be beneficial to King Charles for appointment as archbishop.
From the time of Henry VIII onwards it has been the law that bishops of the Church of England are appointed by the monarch. From 1821 onwards it has also been the convention that the monarch accepts the recommendation of the Prime Minister on this matter and since 1976 there was a process in place involving the Crown Nominations Commission (CNC) by way of which the Church of England chooses candidates for diocesan bishoprics who’re then submitted to the monarch by the Prime Minister for appointment. In the case of suffragan bishops, the diocesan bishops involved recommend the names of candidates to the Prime Minister to be submitted to the monarch.
As the Archbishop of Canterbury is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury the appointment of a recent archbishop involves the work of the CNC and follows the foundations for the work of the CNC laid down within the standing orders of the Church of England’s General Synod.
The composition of the CNC varies depending on whether it’s an bizarre bishop or an archbishop who’s being appointed. In the case of the appointment of a recent Archbishop of Canterbury the composition of the Commission is as follows:
- A lay Chair appointed by the Prime Minister
- A bishop elected by the House of Bishops
- The Archbishop of York or, in the event that they select to not be a member of the CNC, an additional bishop to be elected by the House of Bishops
- Three representatives of the Diocese of Canterbury elected by the dioceses’ Vacancy in See Committee
- Six members of the Commission (three clerical and three lay) elected by the General Synod to serve on the Commission for a five-year period
- Five representatives from other churches within the Anglican Communion – one each from Africa; the Americas; Middle East and Asia; Oceania and Europe. These representatives need to include at the very least two women and two men and at the very least three of them need to be of ‘Global Majority Heritage.’
- The Secretary General of the Anglican Communion, the Prime Minister’s Appointments Secretary and the Archbishops’ Secretary for Appointments are also members of the Commission, but they shouldn’t have a vote.
Prior to the primary meeting of the CNC a consultation process shall be held by the Church of England to find out the needs of the Diocese of Canterbury, the Church of England and the Anglican Communion with regard to the brand new archbishop. After this process has taken place, the CNC will then meet to agree its processes and review potential candidates.
Following an interview process, an agreed candidate shall be chosen by the voting members of the CNC. This candidate might want to receive at the very least two thirds of the votes solid in a secret ballot. It has recently been suggested that the requirement for a two thirds majority ought to be modified, but unless and until this happens through a vote of the General Synod this requirement stays in place. In addition, the CNC must also agree on the name of a second candidate in case it becomes ‘unattainable to appoint’ the agreed candidate.
In theory any member of 1 the churches of the Anglican Communion could possibly be chosen as a candidate to be the following Archbishop of Canterbury (the previous archbishop, Rowan Williams, was, for instance, a member of the Church in Wales). The person chosen could possibly be either male or female and wouldn’t actually have to be ordained at the purpose they were chosen, although they’d have to be ordained deacon after which priest prior to their appointment, at which point they’d then be consecrated as a bishop.
In reality, nonetheless, the likelihood of somebody who was not ordained being chosen is vanishingly small, and up to date history strongly suggests that the chosen candidate shall be someone who’s already a diocesan bishop.
After the CNC has chosen the name of its two preferred candidates, the primary name shall be sent to the Prime Minister for submission to the King. Since 2007, the Prime Minister has accepted the CNC’s beneficial candidate and tendered their name to the Monarch, but in theory the Prime Minister could refuse the primary name and ask for the second name to be submitted as an alternative. Should the Prime Minister or the King refuse each names this is able to be unprecedented and would cause a serious crisis in church-state relations. It is subsequently unlikely to occur.
The formal technique of appointment and enthronement
The second a part of the method takes place once a reputation has been submitted to the King and agreed by him. This a part of the method is predicated on the Appointment of Bishops Act which was passed in 1534Â within the reign of Henry VIII.
This a part of the method has five elements.
(1) The King sends to the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury Cathedral the conge d’elire, which is the licence giving them permission to elect. The licence is accompanied by a Letter Missive from the King containing the name of the person chosen by the Crown and instructing the chapter to elect her or him. Theoretically the Dean and Chapter could refuse to elect the royal candidate. However, in the event that they did so, the King could then proceed to appoint the person anyway by way of royal Letters Patent. In fact, the chapter invariably does elect the royal nominee.
(2) The King will then give royal assent to the election by the Dean and Chapter by way of Letters Patent. These may even command the Archbishop of York and other senior bishops to legally confirm the results of the election. When they’ve done this via a proper legal ceremony the person elected officially becomes the Archbishop of Canterbury and is capable of exercise the spiritual functions of that office.
(3) In the unlikely event of the chosen candidate not already being a bishop, they’d then be consecrated as a bishop by the Archbishop of York, other bishops assisting.
(4) Following the consecration, or the confirmation of election, if someone is already a bishop, the brand new Archbishop of Canterbury will then pay homage to the King and receive the temporalities of the archbishop’s office. The ‘temporalities’ are the property and revenues belonging to a bishop, that are administered by the Crown during an episcopal emptiness and are then restored to a recent bishop. Traditionally these temporalities consisted within the episcopal residences and estates, but because these at the moment are vested within the Church Commissioners as a part of the historic assets of the Church of England, what they consist of today is the best to appoint incumbents to a few of the benefices within the diocese, on this case the Diocese of Canterbury.
The archbishop may even turn into a member of the House of Lords (unless they’re already a member) and a member of the Privy Council (unless they were previously Archbishop of York or Bishop of London through which case they’ll already be a member).
(5) Finally, the brand new archbishop shall be enthroned within the chair of St Augustine in Canterbury Cathedral. This ceremony possesses no legal significance, nevertheless it marks the ceremonial and public entry of the brand new archbishop into his cathedral, diocese and province and into the role of senior bishop of the Anglican Communion.
The challenge facing the CNC and a possible way forward
Although the procedure for formally selecting and appointing a recent Archbishop of Canterbury is thus clear, what is way less clear is how it’ll prove possible for the CNC to decide on a candidate who is suitable across the breadth of each the Church of England and the Anglican Communion.
The deep divisions throughout the Church of England and the Anglican Communion over the difficulty of human sexuality which have opened up since 2003 and which have turn into much more pronounced throughout the tenure of Archbishop Welby, mean that it’ll turn into very difficult, if not unattainable, to search out someone who the Church of England as an entire and the Anglican Communion as an entire will give you the chance to agree upon. If a candidate takes a conservative view on human sexuality this may make them unacceptable to the liberals within the Church of England and the Anglican Communion and vice versa.
The query that subsequently arises is whether or not it may not be sensible to carry off from appointing a recent archbishop until there’s the kind of reconfiguration of the Anglican Communion suggested by the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches and the kind of reconfiguration of the Church of England suggested by the Church of England Evangelical Council and the Alliance.
This would solve the issue because a liberal Archbishop of Canterbury could possibly be appointed who could be acceptable to liberals within the Church of England and across the Communion, but conservatives within the Church of England and the Anglican Communion would not come under his archepiscopal authority.
This is an idea that should be taken seriously to avoid the alternative of a recent archbishop mirroring or indeed exacerbating the division which already exists across the Anglican world.
