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Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby chooses silence on gay marriage
by Kaya Burgess,
The Times
December 12, 2023
The Archbishop of Canterbury has said for the first time that he will keep his views on same-sex marriage in church a secret as long as he is in post.
The question of whether to allow priests to marry gay couples is the most divisive issue in the Church of England. It will come to a head in February, when bishops have pledged to share their views with the General Synod. They are meeting this week to discuss a possible change in doctrine.
Several bishops have issued public statements sharing their position. It is thought more than a thousand priests could back a change to church law.
The Most Rev Justin Welby, the church's most senior cleric and spiritual leader of the global Anglican Communion, said he did not expect to share his views, however, because his role was to be a source of "unity".
He told The Times during a trip to Ukraine: "I am not sure I will be able to say during my time in this job. I can express my own view as far as I know my own mind -- and it doesn't change.
"But the role of archbishop is to be a focus of unity. That isn't just convenient or pragmatic. In Christian thinking that is part of God's call to church leaders. Therefore I have to be convinced before God that it's the right moment to do it -- and not just politically."
The Anglican Communion states that the archbishop’s role is to be “a unique focus for Anglican unity”.
Several Anglican churches, particularly those in Africa, expressed anger when churches in the United States and Scotland started conducting same-sex marriages.
It is thought likely that some, such as the Congolese church, would feel forced to quit the Anglican Communion if the Church of England, seen as the body’s “mother church”, were to back gay marriage.
The vote to create female bishops failed in 2012 but passed in 2014 after a system was designed to accommodate parishes that opposed the move.
Welby said a similar resolution might also be found on same-sex marriage. “We will reach that point not when we glare at each other but in humble prayer before God on our knees,” he said. “We will find a way forward on this. It’s a hugely important subject. I’m not saying we forget about it or kick the can down the road.”
Options include making no change to church law, creating a prayer or blessing for married gay couples or holding same-sex marriages in church.
Jayne Ozanne, a gay rights campaigner on the General Synod, said: “The archbishop’s primary duty is to safeguard God’s sheep. By sitting on the fence and wrongly prioritising ‘unity at all costs’, the archbishop continues to sacrifice LGBT+ people on the altar of expediency and fails to recognise the harm that church teaching continues to cause LGBT+ people.”
Welby was asked about census figures showing that fewer than half of people in England and Wales now identify as Christian. He said that while church attendance may be “in decline”, the church still provides more than 30,000 social schemes such as food banks and debt counselling.
He was asked, however, whether the decline in attendance may eventually jeopardise the church’s ability to provide such services.
“Of course there’s a fear of that,” he said. “That is a serious issue . . . it is bad news. It is worrying for the health of the nation because from our different churches and faiths come by far the largest commitment to social wellbeing, the social cement between the bricks of society. The loss of all that without anything coming in its place is really bad.
“But the church has to take responsibility for its own decline. Our job as the church is to be able to face God saying: ‘We acted rightly, we spoke clearly, and we loved generously and we believed faithfully.’”
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