On Tuesday, the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, announced he would resign over his handling of an abuse scandal.
A damning report concluded last week that after becoming archbishop in 2013, Mr. Welby failed to pursue a proper investigation into claims of widespread abuse of boys and young men by John Smyth, a prominent lawyer and evangelical leader, decades ago at Christian summer camps.
Mr. Welby’s abrupt resignation means the question of who becomes the next archbishop — the spiritual leader of 85 million Anglicans worldwide — is now urgent.
How will the next archbishop be selected?
As Mr. Welby was scheduled to retire in 2026, it’s likely that the Church of England was already beginning to plan for the process of replacing him. The job of managing it falls to a committee known as the Crown Nominations Commission, which was created in 1974. It has 16 voting members, including bishops, representatives from the Canterbury diocese, the global Anglican Communion and the General Synod, which is the church’s national assembly. But do not expect them to operate a transparent selection process.
The group is likely to canvass quietly within the church although there may already be prepared dossiers on potential successors. The commission will eventually agree on its preferred candidate — and possibly a reserve — to be sent to Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, who then advises the monarch on the appointment.
Once the king has approved the successor and they have agreed to serve, the prime minister’s office will announces the name of the archbishop-designate ahead of their formal appointment.
Who are the leading candidates for the next archbishop?
It is safe to assume that the successful candidate will be one of the Church of England’s 107 other bishops. The 106th archbishop of Canterbury is also unlikely to be significantly older than 60, so that they have a reasonable term before the church’s normal retirement age for bishops of 70. But one question is whether the church will appoint someone other than a white man for the first time in its history.
Among those considered to be contenders for the role is Martyn Snow, 56, who has served as the bishop of Leicester since 2016. He was born in Indonesia, where his parents were missionaries and studied chemistry at the University of Sheffield before training for ministry in the Church of England. He has a strong interest in issues around poverty and is chair of the College of Archbishops’ Evangelists, which aims develop the ministry of evangelists across the Church of England
Also thought to be in the running is Guli Francis-Dehqani, the bishop of Chelmsford since 2021 and the first minority-ethnic woman to be ordained a bishop in Britain, who has a particular focus on housing issues. Her father was the Anglican bishop of Iran where her brother was murdered in 1980. She left the country as a teenager and has not yet been able to return.
Another possible candidate is Graham Usher, 54, who was raised in Ghana and became bishop of Norwich in 2017. He studied ecological science at the University of Edinburgh and theology at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, before training for the ministry. He is a committed environmentalist and spends some of his free time beekeeping.
How long will Mr. Welby remain in the post?
In his resignation statement from Lambeth Palace, the archbishop’s official residence, Mr. Welby said that he was giving up his safeguarding responsibilities within the church, meaning he will no longer be involved in policies involving the protection of children, young people and adults, apart from honoring his commitment to meet survivors of abuse. But the timetable for him to relinquish the other parts of his job is unclear, particularly since the process to select, appoint and install a successor is cumbersome and can be slow. Following Mr. Welby’s statement on Tuesday, his office said only that the precise timing of his departure would be made known “in due course.”
Some of Mr. Welby’s critics are calling on him to also relinquish his place in the House of Lords, the unelected second chamber of the British Parliament, where 26 seats are reserved for bishops and archbishops, including the archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the bishops of London, Durham and Winchester.
The post Who Might Be the Next Archbishop of Canterbury? appeared first on New York Times.
