When Pope Francis died in April, the Roman Catholic Church’s succession process moved swiftly into action. Just over a fortnight later, amid smoke and ceremony, it elected a new pope, Leo XIV.

Yet eight months after Justin Welby quit as Archbishop of Canterbury, following a safeguarding scandal over the serial child abuser John Smyth, the Church of England is still leaderless and is likely to remain so until the autumn. Why is it taking the Anglicans so long?

In the wake of the Smyth scandal, finding a suitable candidate to replace Welby — who fits the bill, has no safeguarding issues in their past, and actually wants the job — is proving far from straightforward. In fact, many potential candidates are shying away from the role of leading the 85 million-strong Anglican Communion. The Anglican church has a longstanding tradition of would-be archbishops claiming nolo episcopari: I do not want to be bishop. On this occasion, however, most of them actually mean it.

Insiders describe the selection process as a “bit desperate” and an “impossible ask”. The job itself is enormously challenging because the role of archbishop is really several demanding jobs rolled into one, including leading the See of Canterbury, the Church of England and being spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

The appointments process itself is tortuous and bureaucratic. The Crown Nominations Commission, which oversees the selection, met for the first time in May but only after months of delays. It is due to meet for the second time this month and its third and final meeting will be in September.

The commission for Canterbury has 17 voting members and three non-voting members, who are selected by a variety of bodies including the Canterbury diocese, the General Synod and the House of Bishops. The chair, appointed by Downing Street, is Lord Evans of Weardale, the former head of MI5. In him, at least, there is confidence. “He will get it done,” says one senior bishop. “He really knows what he is doing.”

Speaking to The Times on Friday, Evans said that he was seeking to avoid a situation where all of the candidates were “white, Oxbridge, male and come from the southeast of England”. He also acknowledged that candidates are unlikely to have entirely spotless records. “You can’t say we’re only going to take somebody who has a perfectly unblemished record in every part of their life since birth,” he said. “That would be a slightly odd approach to take as a Christian organisation.”

The selection process is always slow. Justin Welby’s appointment was announced in November 2012, nine months after Archbishop Rowan Williams retired. But this time around, the commission is struggling to identify suitable candidates. Few want their history in the church scrutinised for even the slightest whiff of scandal.

Safeguarding is the “elephant in the room” of the candidate selection, says Simon Sarmiento, of the Thinking Anglicans website. “If [a candidate has] had the slightest episode of having to deal with some safeguarding kerfuffle of some kind, and have not handled it perfectly from the start, it will all be dragged out. It is like asking someone if, as an undergraduate, they were ever drunk on a Saturday night. People are going to be very wary of getting into this selection process and I can understand why.”

The idea of a public inquisition is putting off many potential candidates. A bishop told The Sunday Times: “Some bishops have anxiety about the toll this would take on their family and on their own resilience if they were to be subject to the sort of scrutiny and attacks they would attract, even when they are still in the church but also in retirement.” They said they were not sure they could “put their family through the trauma”, or that their “own skin was thick enough”.

Anyone who puts their name forward knows that intense scrutiny is coming their way, says Andrew Graystone, the theologian and advocate for survivors of abuse.

“Lots of people are dragging safeguarding baggage around with them,” he adds. “Among the House of Bishops, the dominant culture is fear — fear of demographics, fear of running out of money, fear of loss of influence. Whoever takes this on is going to face financial problems and a demographic cliff edge. A lot of the current crop of bishops are just trying to hold out until retirement.”

Normally, the commission would choose two names, in order of preference, from among the 42 Church of England diocesan bishops. The second name is a fallback and only the preferred candidate gets put forward to the prime minister, who then submits the name to the King, the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, for approval.

However, it is proving a struggle to come up with one name, let alone two. “The cupboard is bare, that’s the problem,” a well-placed cleric says.

One reason for this is the difficulty in even managing to appoint new diocesan bishops. Currently, besides Canterbury, a further five of the 42 are vacant — Worcester, Durham, Ely, St Albans and Liverpool, although the latter has an interim in place. Two other dioceses, Carlisle and St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, have only just had new bishops announced. Bristol and Leeds will be vacant soon due to imminent retirements.

Read it all in the Sunday Times