Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster, the president of England and Wales’ bishops conference, has welcomed the appointment of Sarah Mullally as the first female Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury. Source: OSV News.
King Charles III made the historic appointment of the married mother of two and current Anglican Bishop of London as the new Archbishop of Canterbury last week.
In an October 3 statement posted on the bishops’ conference website, Cardinal Nichols said that Archbishop-designate Mullally “will bring many personal gifts and experience to her new role.”
“The challenges and opportunities facing the new Archbishop are many and significant. On behalf of our Catholic community, I assure her of our prayers,” Cardinal Nicholls said.
“Together,” he added, “we will be responsive to the prayer of Jesus that we ‘may all be one’ … and seek to develop the bonds of friendship and shared mission between the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church.”
Archbishop-designate Mullally, 63, was made a dame in 2005 for her services as former chief nursing officer.
In a statement dated October 2 and released on Friday, she said, “As I respond to the call of Christ to this new ministry, I do so in the same spirit of service to God and to others that has motivated me since I first came to faith as a teenager.”
Archbishop-designate Mullally was ordained an Anglican priest in 2002 and has served as bishop of London since 2018. She succeeds Archbishop Justin Welby, who resigned in 2024 following criticism of his handling of a clerical sex abuse crisis.
Archbishop-designate Mullally will be installed in a service at Canterbury Cathedral in March 2026.
Her appointment will also make her the spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, which consists of about 85 million people in 165 countries.
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In historic first, King Charles III appoints woman to be Archbishop of Canterbury (By Simon Caldwell, OSV News)
