Carey to retire from tough Lambeth post

Christian Century, Jan 16, 2002

UNLESS THE administrative burdens are trimmed, the next archbishop of Canterbury will face the same social and spiritual divisions plaguing a personable predecessor who is resigning three years earlier than usual as the leader of 70 million Anglicans and Episcopalians. Archbishop George Carey, who this month said he will retire in October when he will be 67, drew praise for his reconciling stances in struggles between traditionalists and progressives at home and abroad.

Carey has presided over the Church of England since 1991. It has been a tumultuous decade in which his church remains divided over whether women priests may be ordained as bishops. The pressures of the post have been increasing while Canterbury has developed as the de facto presidency of the Anglican Communion. Growing African and other Third World churches oppose liberal trends leading to gay ordinations and same-sex unions in North America, England and Australia.

Carey's immediate predecessors--Robert Runcie, Donald Coggan and Michael Ramsey--all served until around the age of 70. But Carey has contemplated early retirement since at least 1997, when he told the Reuters news agency that the job was more demanding than he expected. "You pour yourself into it and it is not only the physical side of this ... but it is also spiritually and emotionally demanding because you are being hit from so many angles," he said then.

Last year a report examining the future of Canterbury included a proposal to appoint a bishop to work at Lambeth Palace on Anglican Communion affairs as well as to relieve the archbishop from some duties as a diocesan bishop. Observers said Carey's retirement creates an opportunity to restructure the Canterbury see.

Upon Carey's announcement on January 8, talk in the British press quickly turned to a successor, who will be chosen by Prime Minister Tony Blair and appointed by Queen Elizabeth II after a secret vetting process. It is understood that the queen asked Carey to stay on most of this year to mark the 50th anniversary of her reign.

Among the leading candidates are the bishop of Rochester, the Pakistani-born and evangelical Michael Nazir-Ali; the liberal-leaning archbishop of Wales, Rowan Williams; and the bishop of London, Richard Chartres, who is close to Britain's royal family. Others mentioned are the bishop of Liverpool, James Jones, and the bishop of St. Albans, Christopher Herbert.

A senior church official at a press briefing in London denied that Carey is retiring especially early, pointing out that bishops could retire at 65. "Dr. Carey wants to hand on the baton to his successor while he is still full of energy, vitality and commitment, and I can assure you that he is," the official said.

In his own brief statement about plans to step down, Carey said, "By the end of October I shall have served 11 and a half years in a demanding yet wonderfully absorbing and rewarding post. I feel certain this will be the right and proper time to stand down. I look forward to exciting opportunities and challenges in the coming months, and then to fresh ones in the years that follow."

The next archbishop will be handed a family of 38 autonomous national churches, including the Episcopal Church in the U.S. That church's presiding bishop, Frank T. Griswold, praised Carey for his sensitive and delicate leadership of the Communion, saying he forced member churches--including Episcopalians--to measure their actions against the global church. "He's been very clear about what he calls schism and schismatic action, and he's also very clear about national churches being aware of the fact that what they do has ramifications all over the Communion, and that they can't see their lives as disconnected from everyone else," Griswold said.

Under Carey's leadership, the Church of England agreed in 1992 to allow women's ordination, but still will not ordain women bishops. Only 18 months into his new job, Carey said the issue was one of cultural and social credibility. During his tenure, church attendance fell by nearly one-quarter and several hundred priests left over the women's ordination issue.

In an effort to please traditionalists, Carey allowed safeguards for clergy who could not agree with women's ordination to retire with their pensions, and he permitted parishes to refuse women priests. Carey also allowed a system of "flying bishops" so that parishes opposed to women priests could enjoy the oversight of sympathetically minded bishops.

Carey approached the U.S. church delicately, at once standing with Griswold against the illicit ordinations of conservative bishops to work on U.S. soil and lecturing the American church against pushing liberal social issues that strained unity with other member churches. In his signature middle-way style, Carey declined to sanction either the U.S. church or the Third World conservatives who wanted to excommunicate Episcopalians.

Carey broke the traditional mold as the 103rd archbishop of Canterbury. He was brought up on a working-class estate in East London, and his father was a hospital porter. After service in the Royal Air Force, he was able to get into London University. He was the first archbishop of Canterbury since the Middle Ages not to attend Cambridge or Oxford universities. After ordination he obtained a doctorate while working as a theological college lecturer, first in London and later in Nottingham.