LEILA FADEL, HOST:
For the first time in its history, the Church of England has named a woman as its top leader. Sarah Mullally will be the new Archbishop of Canterbury, leading the world's 85 million Anglicans. She takes over a church beset by abuse scandals and divided over how to treat women and LGBTQ people. Mullally's appointment was announced this morning. NPR's Lauren Frayer joins us now from London to talk about it. Good morning.
LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE: Good morning, Leila.
FADEL: OK. So, Lauren, tell us about Mullally and how she came to lead one of the world's biggest churches.
FRAYER: She's a 63-year-old former cancer nurse. She was the youngest person ever appointed as the chief nursing officer for England. Then she became a priest. The Anglican Church started ordaining women priests in the 1990s, then climbed the ranks, became the Bishop of London. She also sits in the House of Lords, the upper chamber of the U.K. Parliament, because there's no U.S.-style separation of church and state here. And so this is both a spiritual and a political role.
FADEL: Interesting.
FRAYER: The church announced her appointment this morning, but she won't actually be enthroned until early next year. But she's already given her first sermon. Here she is at Canterbury Cathedral.
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SARAH MULLALLY: Washing feet has shaped my Christian vocation as a nurse, then a priest, then a bishop. In the apparent chaos which surrounds us, in the midst of such profound global uncertainty, the possibility of healing lies in acts of kindness and love.
FRAYER: So she seemed to acknowledge the challenges facing both her church and, really, the whole world right now. She also used this first appearance to condemn yesterday's attack on a place of worship, a synagogue in Manchester and northern England, saying, quote, "hatred and racism cannot tear us apart."
FADEL: So, Lauren, what are some of those challenges she describes that the Anglican Church actually faces specifically?
FRAYER: First, the child abuse scandal that prompted her predecessor Justin Welby's resignation. An inquiry found that he had failed to report child abuse at Christian summer camps. Declining church attendance is a big issue, especially here in England and other parts of the West. The Anglican Church, overall, has also had internal disagreements over the treatment of LGBTQ people. There's a wide range of positions held by churches within the Anglican communion about homosexuality, about same-sex marriage, about LGBTQ clergy. Some Anglican churches in Africa operate in countries where homosexuality is illegal. And finally, there have been disagreements on the role of women. Some churches opposed the ordination of women as priests when that began, and also their consecration as bishops.
FADEL: And now those churches will be led by a woman who's been both a priest and a bishop.
FRAYER: Yes, and a woman who, in her first speech as Bishop of London back in 2018, called herself subversive. She noted in that sermon that more than a hundred years earlier, suffragettes had tried to detonate a bomb under the bishop's seat where she was being enthroned, and she joked, you know, she's not literally carrying bombs, but she will embrace that role of being subversive. Now, she didn't say anything like that today in her first sermon. She was much more prayerful, but there are some objections to her appointment.
FADEL: Oh, from who? Tell me about those objections.
FRAYER: A group of Anglican churches in Africa and Asia has issued a statement saying they reject her appointment, that it shows the English arm of the church has, quote, "relinquished its authority to lead."
FADEL: That's NPR's Lauren Frayer in London. Thank you for your reporting, Lauren.
FRAYER: You're welcome.
(SOUNDBITE OF HANDBOOK'S "ANGELS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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