Sarah Mullally is named as first female archbishop of Canterbury

Loafing Oaf

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/10/03/uk/sarah-mullally-female-archbishop-of-canterbury-intl

Big news I guess. Highlights how far Catholicism and Anglicanism have diverged on the issue of female ordination.

midlander12

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058425945/sarah-mullally-is-named-as-first-female-archbishop-of-canterbury

Wow, I didn't realise that was on the cards. I know no one goes to church in the UK now but still the symbolism is strong.

Loafing Oaf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123873036#Comment_123873036

AFAIK a female archbishop was widely expected but Bishop Mullally was not the fancied name.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/two-women-seen-frontrunners-ahead-144803226.html

Leading contenders include Bishop Rachel Treweek, the CoE's first-ever female diocesan bishop, and Iranian-born Bishop Guli Francis-Dehqani, who came to Britain as a refugee with her parents following the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

I'm counting down for a statement from Mary MacAleese welcoming this move and lamenting how it shows up her own church.

Cyclingtourist

What's the big deal, there have been female priests in the Anglican faith for decades. In fact there were a few defectors over the issue at the start.

Best of luck to her.

midlander12

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123873065#Comment_123873065

Well McAleese knows what to do. I'd say she'd get to be a bishop in no time herself.

midlander12

Just looking at her Wikipedia. She's a former Chief Nursing Officer for England and a niece of the 'comic' Bernard Manning, and an ancestor Cardinal Manning converted to Catholicism and went on to become the Catholic primate of England and Wales.

Sarah Mullally - Wikipedia

Thinkingaboutit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123873085#Comment_123873085

I honestly think McAleese will one day lose it (more than she has hitherto) and proclaim herself Pope. Anglicanism / Episcopalian tradition has moved to accommodate the ordination of women, but McAleese's 'main character syndrome' won't allow her to move to where her views will be accepted.

midlander12

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123876770#Comment_123876770

Given her background I imagine she would find it impossible to move to the COI, though I recall that as President she annoyed some purists by taking communion at a service at Christchurch.

Loafing Oaf

Apparently the new Arch described herself as pro-choice in a 2012 blog post so I guess that just confirms all the more traditionally minded Catholics' worst suspicions about women bishops and the CofE generally…

Thinkingaboutit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123876796#Comment_123876796

Likely, but she seems to have a shrill 'how dare you' and 'I'm a canon lawyer' tone, so until she learns that people who disagree have to approached with respect, she will change no minds, except those who go the opposite way she wants.

A big issue with this new Abp is that her very definite liberalism will alienate those African and Asian Anglicans who actually manage to have crowded Services. Even if the committee that voted on her had a supposedly representative makeup, it opted someone who represents a Western liberalism. These African Churches are already organised in at least two major synodal bodies that make clear they reject her LGBT friendly and pro choice, albeit anti-euthanasia stances. These are likelier to have few women clergy even if some do allow it. South Africa's Anglicans might be more liberal leaning, but that's largely it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8YaY4H17Do

midlander12

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123898446#Comment_123898446

I'm of the view that the so-called Anglican Communion is a bit of a polite fiction (and indeed a vestige of colonialism). The COE, apart from its most conservative elements, has little or nothing in common with the Anglican or Episcopalian churches in Africa or Asia.

Thinkingaboutit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123899158#Comment_123899158

I think so. African and Asian Anglicans seem to be largely on a whole other wavelength (a more traditional one) than the original primatal see of Canterbury. A reportedly 'pro choice' albeit 'anti-euthanasia' pick seems to show a studied indifference to those who don't hold to Western liberal cultural mores.