Revolutionary turning point in the Church of England after 500 years of history. The Anglican community, national confession of reference of the island, for the first time to lead a woman, Sarah Mullally, elected to the office of Archbishop of Canterbury in response to sexual scandals, pedophilia and accusations of residential that have also invested beyond sleeves quite a few presume men.
Its designation was formalized by the synodal assembly of an institution whose nominal head remains the British ruler sovereign. And under the supervision of a sort of Reale Committee of Guarantees, the Crown Nominations Commission for Canterbury, chaired nothing less than by a former head of the Em5, the internal secret services of His Majesty, Lord Jonathan Evans. But beyond these aspects, which still underline the link with the monarchical power of a church born from the schism of King Henry VIII then placed then over time halfway between the Catholic tradition and the Protestant reform, it represents the seal to a change in radical image that consumed in a decade. Symbolized by the polite tones as much of a woman who has divided her life between the work of work in public and ecclesiastical healthcare. And that today speaks of himself as “a pastora” – recall already dear to Pope Francis – in charge of trying to return faith to a missing flock: decimated by secularism, embarrassed in the face of the mud poureding on the hierarchy.
Decorated at the time by the crown with the title of ladies, female equivalent of that of Sir, Mullally is 63 years old and a whole -trial cursus honorem. Ordained priest in 2002, he became the first woman to rise to the summit of an Anglican diocese, that of London, in 2018, after the contrasted clearance dated 2014. Charge that he covered for seven years before accessing the seat of Canterbury now, in the role of primate, on the background of a scenario that now sees 40 women bishop on 108. The sign of “a rebalancing”, Of the need to give a cleaning, rigor and transparency imprint compared to the scandals of the past: like the one who in 2024 forced to resign the previous archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, for the covers given to a lawyer linked to the church, John Smyth, promoter for years of youth fields in Africa, finally revealed in the role of sexual predator of at least 130 boys.
The neo-Eletta is not lacking in the support of Labor Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who fell up for the choice of a woman, underlining “the profound importance for the country of the Church of England”, also social. While there were the ecumenical wishes of the Vatican, where Pope Leo XIV is preparing to receive King Charles III shortly on the state visit. For his part, Dame Sarah thanked the Synod and the faithful for the “honor” received, ensuring that he wanted to put himself “to the service of God” and the neighbor to give “hope and comfort” in difficult times, not without remembering his conversion as a teenager and hoping to be able to revive “confidence in the Church”. Measured words, which however do not cancel how much she herself had to say in 2018, when He recalled how the chair on which he had been called to sit down had been the subject of a dynamite attack, a century earlier, by radical suffragettes that invoked the vote and equal rights for women.