Canterbury’s missing scarf

As of January 28, the new Archbishop of Canterbury is the Reverend Sarah Mullally. She is the first woman to lead the Church of England and the global Anglican Communion, as is her charge. Anglicanism has often served as an ecumenical bridge between Catholicism and the Reformed tradition, as it has for my wife, Brenda, and me. To be sure, the See of Canterbury has had its share of failures recently, but Canterbury remains an exceptional place where something new may grow.

From what I have read, it is clear that the Holy Spirit and the nominations committee have selected a remarkable individual. Trained as a nurse, Mullally rose to the top of the National Health Service, earned a knighthood for her contribution to nursing and midwifery, and then entered full-time ministry. Archbishop Sarah will be formally installed in Canterbury on March 25. For lovers of ceremony and historic firsts, this will be a church service to watch.

Canterbury Cathedral, one of England’s most beautiful, has one little quirk that captures its connection to Rome, which goes back to the sixth century. Its coat of arms shows the pallium, the distinctive white woollen scarf with cross-marks that the Pope traditionally presents to Catholic Archbishops. In fact, the pallium symbol appears throughout the Cathedral. But since the Reformation, the Archbishops are no longer in full communion with Rome, so there will be no pallium presented at Mullally’s installation service.

The challenges

What should the pallium or its absence signify to Archbishop Sarah? To answer that, consider the challenges she’ll face. Relations with conservatives in the worldwide Anglican community will be extremely strained. Accountability for past abuses and a stalled process of LGBTQ inclusion are urgent domestic priorities. Tensions between the evangelical, liberal and Anglo-Catholic wings of the Church of England may prove unmanageable. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom itself is facing serious difficulties. The drama of Brexit has led to economic decline and geopolitical isolation; the Labour government is deeply unpopular, and the far right might take over at the next election. How to lead in these circumstances?

The key to ecumenical relations is to understand what each church tradition does best, what it can learn from others, and how it has struggled over time to stay on task. It is the distinctive qualities of each church tradition that count, not how much we look alike. Once we know that, we take inspiration from each other. We might also begin to notice that many of these challenges look remarkably similar across the Western world.

National or global

The Church of Rome has a global task and a global mission. No nation stands above any other. The Church of England has a different task: to be a church for a specific nation while maintaining open relations with Anglicans worldwide. Having women priests and bishops fits within the Church of England’s ministry, as does having cathedrals such as Canterbury, and the liberal and evangelical wings of the church have their place as well. None of these would fit in the Roman Catholic Church. As a Catholic myself, I can still be deeply thankful for the role they play for Anglicans.

The Roman Catholic Church must be aware of global realities and bring them together, from the Amazon to Papua to Palestine and Ukraine. For this purpose, it has to respond to a global centre, and its bishops will all have to be male for the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, I pray for blessings on Archbishop Sarah and wish her a good dose of humour as she walks with Christ along the path of her deeply rooted, sometimes quirky, but truly beautiful Anglican tradition. Christians of all denominations should pay attention to the new Archbishop.