THE RT Rev’d and Rt Hon Dame Sarah Mullally was not exactly enthroned – that would be far too elitist for the modern egalitarian C of E – as the first female Archbishop of Canterbury, but she was ‘confirmed’ in the post yesterday.
Whatever the terminology, she begins her occupancy of the province of Canterbury and Primate of All England with a pile of problems in her in-tray. There is the small matter of the petition against her appointment on the grounds that she has erred and strayed when it comes to matters of safeguarding; it is alleged that she failed in her care for a ‘survivor’ of clerical abuse and that she is in breach of the Clergy Discipline Measure.
This is not the most acute of her troubles. She has been appointed to lead a church which is in relentless decline, with four times as many bishops as there were a century ago when five times as many people attended church. Also, owing to the commitment of the Bishops and Synod to some sort of sacerdotal recognition of homosexual marriages, many thriving dioceses of traditional – that is believing – Christians in Africa as well as some evangelical parishes in the UK have sought ‘alternative pastoral oversight’ – in other words, they have rejected the authority of Canterbury.
An even greater controversy has arisen over the Church’s plan for a £100million fund to make reparations for slave trading in which it was involved centuries before any of us were born. This at a time when rural parishes are being forced to close down faster even than country pubs. Already hard-pressed parishes are obliged to pay an average of £40,000 each year in the tax euphemistically referred to as the ‘diocesan share’. And there is the intolerable burden imposed by the mandate declaring the whole C of E must achieve net zero carbon by 2030. It is dispiriting to see a Christian institution in thrall to the pagan fantasy of climate change. As part of this insane obsession, the church authorities have told parishes to stop buying flowers imported from abroad. It is thus amusing to note that while illegal immigrants are welcomed with the kiss of peace, foreign foliage is banned.
Sarah Mullally’s appointment as Archbishop was, in the best traditions of left-wing ideology, ‘inevitable’. She was earmarked in her early career by the liberal elite for high office in the church through brisk promotion to the episcopate. Yes, she is fond of telling us humbly, ‘I was a nurse’, but that got left behind three decades ago when she was appointed Chief Nursing Officer and embarked on her progress as a career bureaucrat. Here is a selection of the roles and offices adorned by her presence: Independent Governor of South Bank University; Fellow of that same establishment; Non-Executive Director of the NHS Foundation Trust; Member of the Council of King’s College, London; Member of the Church of England Dioceses Commission; three Honorary Doctorates of Health Science; Rt Rev Bishop of London and of course her title of Dame.
As with every member of the liberal establishment, she ticks all the right boxes and she is a past-mistress of its socio-speak jargon: ‘inclusivity . . .reaching out to the marginalised . . . allowing the voices of minorities to be heard . . . diversity . . . the emotion generated by solidarity’. For example, she wrote some years ago after one of the terrorist ‘tragedies’ (as these atrocities are fatuously called):
‘These emotions were present in St Paul’s for the National Memorial Service. People stood together to remember those who died, to support the bereaved and offer a way forward for those who survived.’
But there wasn’t much solidarity or inclusivity for non-apparatchiks, was there? Not when Conservative councillors were barred from attending the service.
Mullally is an outstanding exponent of that great liberal – actually most illiberal – virtue of agreeing to tolerate only those who agree with you. When it comes to respect for minorities, the very fact of her appointment to Canterbury is a monstrous mark of disrespect for Anglo-Catholic minorities who do not agree with the ordination of women as priests and their consecration as bishops.
But that is the hallmark of the liberal establishment, isn’t it? ‘All Minorities Catered For – Except Traditional Anglicans’. Of course, she has expressed her strong support for that most intolerant, self-interested pressure group which goes by the initials LGBT+ and supports the Palestinians, some of whom throw homosexuals from rooftops.
The LGBT+ crowd are of course cock-a-hoop (so to speak) about her appointment as the most senior cleric in the land, for she is in the vanguard of the synodical process which fervently seeks the introduction of homosexual marriage into the Church of England. There is more than a hint of this in one of her (ungrammatical) utterances: ‘It is a time for us to reflect on our tradition and scripture and together say how we can offer a response that is about it being inclusive love.’
This appointment is not only Mullally’s personal triumph and a temporary setback to the purposes of the Holy Ghost. It is a kick in the teeth from the liberal – that is non-believing – establishment to all the faithful Catholic priests and Bible-based ministers in what’s left of the Church of England.
I know she doesn’t feel overawed by her appointment. It’s just like any other of her establishment posts, only with a lot more dressing up, a lot more appearances on telly – and a lot more clout. I know it’s the season of Epiphany, but a personalisation of Thomas Cranmer’s Collect for Trinity XVII is an appropriate petition to welcome Dame Sarah Mullally to the throne of Canterbury:
‘Lord, we pray thee that thy grace may always prevent and follow her . . .’
