As the eyes of the world are fixed on a chimney in the Vatican*, the Church of England is trumpeting the fact that 11,000 people have been consulted about the future Archbishop of Canterbury.
This consultation has not gone down well on X, with suggestions that the Church of England are engaged in a PR exercise or the kind of managerial process more suited to a local planning application.
But perhaps more concerning is the embarrassing admission, slipped out by the Diocese of Canterbury that will most likely delay the appointment of the primus inter pares of the Anglican Communion.
As many have commented the process for appointing the Archbishop of Canterbury is somewhat more complicated than a papal conclave.
The Archbishop of Canterbury is chosen by the Crown Nominations Commission – a body made up of 17 voting members, representing five different groups who could be said to have an interest in who is appointed to the the position.
- The Chair – appointed by the Prime Minister
- Two Church of England bishops – elected by the House of Bishops
- Six members of the General Synod – elected by the House of Clergy and House of Laity
- Three members of the Diocese of Canterbury – chosen by their Vacancy-in-See Committee
- Five members of the Anglican Communion – appointed by the Joint Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council
They are then joined by two (or three) non-voting members, the Archbishops’ Secretary for Appointments, Mr Stephen Knott, the Prime Minister’s Appointments Secretary, Mr Jonathan Hellewell and the Secretary General of the Anglican Communion, Bishop Anthony Poggo, if he wishes to attend.
The members of the Crown Nominations Commission were originally due to be announced in March and meet for the first time in May. The first deadline has passed and it is unlikely the second will be met because the Diocese of Canterbury’ have twice failed to follow the regulations governing the election of their Vacancy-in-See committee – a committee which should actually have already been in place when Rt Revd Justin Welby resigned. This failure, whether because of mistakes of strategy or admininstration, means that the ‘Statement of Needs’ for the diocese, which informs the whole selection process cannot be agreed and the final three members of the Crown Nominations Committee cannot be chosen.
Credit must go to the Revd Dr Andrew Goddard who has written at length (see below) about the problems that the Diocese of Canterbury have faced and the mistakes they have made along the way. He has done an admirable job of seeking to keep the diocesan authorities accountable, concluding that there are “multiple causes for these various flaws and so no one person is to blame.”
What is going wrong with the Canterbury appointment process?
As the Diocese of Canterbury prepare for the third election in six months they may well sympathise with Cardinal Lawrence, played by Ralph Fiennes in the film Conclave,
“The supervision of this election, is a duty I never thought I’d have to perform.”
*The white smoke went up just as this blog was published.