Backlash at bid to give other nations a bigger say over Welby’s successor

GIVING overseas Anglican leaders more power in choosing the next Archbishop of Canterbury could be seen as ‘colonial’, critics said yesterday.

The most senior clergyman in the Church of England is the spiritual leader of 80million worshippers worldwide but has no power over Anglican churches in other nations.

Candidates for the role – currently held by Justin Welby – are nominated by 16 members of the Crown Nominations Commission and final approval is given by the Queen. But under controversial new plans, first revealed in a CofE consultation document last month, the places for overseas representatives would be boosted from one to five.

During a discussion yesterday at the General Synod, the Church’s parliament, Rev David Bruce Bryant-Scott – an assistant chaplain on the Greek island of Crete, who was born in Canada – said: ‘I think if this proposal was put to my colleagues in the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada it would be resoundingly defeated. That is because it would be seen as profoundly colonial. And perhaps there would be a great suspicion that this was an attempt to re-inscribe aspects of the Anglican covenant by stealth.’

And Rev Mae Christie, of the Diocese of Southwark, who was born and raised in the US, said he feared the proposal ‘might have the opposite effect to what is intended’, adding: ‘I worry that this proposal may feel more colonial rather than less as it may appear to elevate the role of the Archbishop internationally.’

General Synod members backed a motion to ‘take note’ of the paper. They will be asked to vote on the final proposal in July. The Bishop of Chester, the Rt Rev Mark Tanner, told the meeting the move was ‘an embodiment of our fellowship [and] a visible expression of our global identity’.