by Tim Wyatt, Premier Christianity
The election of Pope Leo XIV has focused attention on another Church in need of a new leader. Yet what took the Catholic Church just two weeks will take the CofE almost a year. Why does it take so long, and what has gone wrong already? Tim Wyatt offers his guide to the appointment of the next ABC
There were just 17 days between the death of Pope Francis and the appointment of his successor, Leo XIV. Yet the Archbishop of Canterbury resigned in November 2024, and his successor is not likely to be announced until September (at the earliest) – ten whole months since Justin Welby was forced out over his involvement in the John Smyth abuse scandal.
There is no single reason why the CofE is finding it so hard to appoint a new leader. Partly, the process is designed to be slower and more collaborative. But the drawn-out marathon is also exposing the fractures already present in the Anglican Church. These tensions have already slowed down the process – and could yet flare up again.
What is the process?
In theory, the Archbishop of Canterbury is appointed by the King, as Supreme Governor of the CofE. However, in reality, the King simply rubberstamps the name given to him by the Prime Minister, which is in turn given to them by an opaque, and typically Anglican committee called the Crown Nominations Commission (CNC).
The Archbishop of Canterbury does several jobs at once, and so the CNC is designed to include everyone who has an interest in the various sections of the role. They will be bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury, chair of the Church’s House of Bishops, leader of the CofE itself, and head of the global Anglican Communion.
Therefore, representatives from each of those groups are included on the CNC, which is made up of 17 members. The chair must be a lay churchgoing Anglican – this time it will be the crossbench peer and former head of MI5 Jonathan Evans. He is joined by the second most senior figure in the CofE, the Archbishop of York, Most Rev Stephen Cottrell, plus one other bishop elected by their colleagues (this time it is Rt Rev Graham Usher, Bishop of Norwich).