Rowan Williams ponders Anglican Communion’s survival

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has warned that his newly appointed successor faces a near unattainable job and has questioned whether the Anglican Communion can survive.

In an interview with the Clerical Whispers blog site, Williams, who served as Archbishop from 2002 to 2012, said he wouldn’t be attending Dame Sarah Mullally’s upcoming installation as he didn’t want to “be Marley’s ghost”.

He warned that Archbishop Mullally, like every recent leader, would have a variety of expectations heaped upon her: “Realising you’re not going to have the ability to satisfy them is an element of the job. It isn’t any walk within the park.”

Despite leaving office over a decade ago, the Church under Archbishop Mullally faces much of the identical questions and problems that Williams needed to take care of during his tenure. The ‘same-sex query’ and the unity of the worldwide Anglican Communion remain key concerns.

Williams spoke of how he still loses sleep over the Jeffrey John controversy. John, a homosexual priest, was nominated for the post of Bishop of Reading in 2003, nonetheless pressure from the broader Communion led to his being withdrawn as a candidate.

Divisions inside the Anglican Communion are stronger now than ever. When Mullally was announced as the brand new Archbishop of Canterbury, the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (GAFCON), said it could not recognise her spiritual authority attributable to “false teaching” on matters of sexuality.

Since then GAFCON has elected its own leadership council because it continues on the trail of “principled disengagement”.

Speaking of the general situation, Williams said, “I don’t know whether the Anglican Communion will survive.”

However, despite the many years long divisions and controversies, Williams said he still found comfort in his on a regular basis faith.

“I keep going to mass in my parish church in Cardiff and taking advantage of that. What reassures me, what anchors me, is ultimately an act of religion, of theological conviction, that if God wants the Church to exist, the Church will exist,” he said. 

Dame Sarah is to be formally installed as the primary female Archbishop of Canterbury at Canterbury Cathedral on Wednesday.