Credit where it is due, it appears at first sight to be very talented achievement to rise to the top of two professions.
Sarah Mullaly deserves to be congratulated on having achieved the great distinction of becoming chief nursing officer of England and Wales and then late in life changing careers to become a clergy woman. Having done that she achieved the distinction of becoming the first woman Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury.
Congratulations to Sarah Mullally are however slightly modified by the pain of seeing an office held by Saint Anselm and sent Thomas A Beckett appropriated by a state religion committed not only to the repudiation of the Catholic faith but also an alien philosophy feminism which holds many dangers for authentic Christianity.
It is a therefore emotionally difficult for Catholics to have both their buildings as well their language appropriated by a very different Protestant form of Christianity which not only stole the Catholic churches property, eviscerated its monasteries, tortured and killed its priests and religious from 1535 (a Carthusian monks) to 1679 (Nicholas Postgate), repudiated its theology and practice, but then appropriated its offices and titles to infer a wholly fabricated continuity, inferring a borrowed integrity.
It would’ve been easier for us if the terminology of office of Archbishop of Canterbury had been left to describe the Catholic holders of a Catholic office. There is some offence in the news that Lambeth Palace officials shortened Sarah Mullaly to ‘106’ as if she was in some way in direct succession to the Catholic hierarchy. She isn’t.
Cardinal Pole was the 72nd and last Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury. If you start counting again, for a new church, a new office, a new enterprise, Sarah Mullaly is the 34th Protestant holder the office. They could have called her ‘34’ but it does not have the same cachet. Preferring spin to reality, they stuck to ‘106’.
In terms of not appropriating other peoples’ cultures, a principle the C of E is very committed to nowadays, it would’ve been preferable for the Anglicans to have adopted a more protestant title like ‘senior clergy person of East Kent’ So in that lexicon, Sarah Mullaly this becomes the 34th Senior clergyperson of East Kent.’ But it doesn’t have the same cachet. So it’s no wonder they stuck with borrowing clothes and titles from the repudiated Catholic Church.
Letting go the offence of appropriation, a more pressing question is whether he C of E has also to deal with the shadow of DEI hiring undermining the integrity of the appointment.
DEI?
Was Sara Mullaly the ‘best man for the job’ (sic)?
Some critics, with more refined sensibilities, were taken aback at her stumbling over the pronunciation in her reading St Paul’s epistle at the recent coronation. It was thought that a minimum qualification for high office ought to include a facility with reading from the Bible in public. A little fastidious maybe, but not unreasonable.
However, having praised Sarah Emily on her competence and achievements, and in particular giving credit to her with gratitude for her vocal opposition to euthanasia in the House of Lords, her appointment inevitably provokes a reflection on what the consequences of adopting an alien philosophy – feminism – for a Christian denomination.
Feminism is the soft edge of a dangerous political movement, rooted in cultural Marxism and committed to the equality of outcome and the suppression of criticism and opposition. It finds Christian orthodoxy and anathema and seeks to undermine it restrained and change it whenever it can.
SEX AND CHILDREN
The link below shows a smirking Sarah Mullally refusing to answer a question on General Synod about whether the Anglican bishops were willing to protect children from the sexualisation of Pride marches
The answer was – no.
More substantially, her repudiation of euthanasia needs to be set against her preference for feminist ethics over Christian ones when she announced her ethical position on abortion, and gave her support for the principle of killing unrequired babies in the womb, saying’
“I would suspect that I would describe my approach to this issue as pro-choice rather than pro live “(sic).
Dr Calum Miller a well-known public defender of the lies of the unborn responded in X
“The Church of England had lost all moral credibility. It is over”
The project of changing Church of England’s teaching and practice to allow gay marriage was intended to be driven by the ‘Living in Love and Faith’ initiative which led to the approval of gay blessings in 2023. Sarah Mullaly played a significant part in promoting that initiative and it is difficult to imagine along with most other proponents of gay blessings that privately she doesn’t want to see complete equality between homosexuals and heterosexuals in the area of marriage and move towards changing Church law.
But it is well known among activists that senior clergy who are in favour of gay marriage have to dissemble and hide their views in case it provokes orthodox Christians to a more serious opposition of the progressive corruption of Christian ethics. That’s the strategy. And so far, it has worked.
Part of the difficulty of having an office holder in a Christian denomination that holds itself out to be orthodox who subscribes the feminist principles, is that feminism is profoundly antithetic to the idea of heterosexual marriage, as well as the serious immorality of abortion.
COMPETENCE AND SAFEGUARDING
Just at the level of competence, however, are there any other difficult difficulties that Sarah mail’s appointment faces?
Given that Justin Welby failed the safeguarding hurdle, it is a serious difficulty that on the announcement of her appointment serious protest by abuse survivors broke surface.
Andrew Graystone, an advocate for survivors of church-related abuse, stated that Mullally’s appointment had “caused real shock and dismay” because “the Diocese of London has a disastrous track record of safeguarding failures”. A report from February 2025 investigated a case involving a senior diocesan official who had defrauded the diocese and whose bullying behaviour and malicious list of vicars led to a “disastrous safeguarding investigation which ended in an innocent priest’s suicide”.
I followed this tragic and terrible story from before it became public knowledge. It reflected very badly indeed on Sarah Mullally’s handling of her diocese. It was hard to find the words to describe the awfulness of what happened. It boded ill for her reputation for competence, which as feared, grew very much worse.
And so, a victim of abuser John Smyth called Mullally’s appointment “absolutely disastrous,” claiming she had been “complicit in multiple safeguarding failures in the Diocese of London”. This survivor said the Church of England needed an outsider to address the safeguarding scandals, not “more of the same”.
You would think that since failure is in Safeguarding caused the resignation of Justin Welby despite his bewilderment and bemusement that he had been found to a fallen short of a level of competence and integrity one expected Arhcbishop, and the organisation of The Church of England would’ve found somebody who would command some degree of competence regarding safeguarding. They haven’t.
ISSUES OF ETHICS AND COMPETENCE.
While those who support the principle of a state Church having to reflect secular rather than Christian ethical principles, ‘faute de mieux’. will not have too much difficulty over Sarah Mullaly’s commitment to abortion and gay blessings, they may wonder whether she has proved her adequacy for the post in terms of Safeguarding?
Much of the difficulty in finding a successor which took over a year had to do with the fact that very few senior clergy had clean hands when it came to a safeguarding record. That can be seen from the outburst from victims of clerical abuse that includes Sarah Mullally.
It is long been known that the feminist movers and shakers in The Church of England were determined to have a woman in the post of Archbishop at the soonest possible opportunity. They chose to take a risk with Sarah Mullally given her track record for failing to command the support of the abuse victims.
In gaining their trust and support at least she’s going to have some difficulty improving. She’s not just one more DEI Hire designed promote the cause of feminism at the expense of the integrity, competence and reputation of the organisation.
It’s not looking good.
At some point even diehard state church devotees may begin to wonder if the heterodox state sponsored Babylonian captivity of a failed Protestant experiment has run its course. This may be the moment. Yes.