by Serenhedd James, Spectator
‘Sarah, by Divine Providence Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of All England, Member of His Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Council, and Dean of His Majesty’s Chapels Royal.’ You might think with that kind of job title there would be someone, somewhere in the corridors of prelatical power, who might, like Sergeant Wilson to Captain Mainwaring in Dad’s Army, lean out from behind a tapestry occasionally and whisper: ‘do you think that’s wise, Your Grace?’
Lambeth Palace is home to serried ranks of professional advisors – not that you’d know it from their website. Their job, obviously, is to advise the Archbishop of Canterbury on the hundreds of matters that pertain to her high office, both at home and overseas. Of course, the senior bishop of the Church of England and the nominal leader of the Anglican Communion needs a staff to help her manage a workload that no one could possibly shoulder alone. After this latest fiasco, however, one might be forgiven for wondering what some of them do.
[…] The now seemingly-endless smorgasbord of awards that the Archbishop of Canterbury is expected to dole out has its origins in her predecessor’s disdain for the historic Lambeth degrees, which had been awarded by successive primates since they usurped the privilege from their days as papal legates. They were substantive, not honorary, and awarded to men and women with a lifetime of tried and tested service in their respective fields: Doctors of Divinity, music, civil law, and the like.
Justin Welby instead brought in a suite of medals in grey boxes, to be distributed like chocolate coins to grateful children, with bespoke engravings: a correspondent of mine asked why her husband’s award looked like a Yugoslav figure-skating trophy. The hubris reached its zenith in 2022, when Archbishop Welby awarded a ‘Cross of Canterbury’ to Elizabeth II ‘for services to the Church of England’: including, presumably, being its Supreme Governor and his boss. All I’ll say is this: I never saw her wear it.
Watch: on GB News, Josh Howie talks to Revd Stephen Kuhrt and Tim Dieppe