At midday today we heard the announcement that all who care deeply about the Church had been waiting for so eagerly - our new Archbishop is to be Dr Rowan Williams. Dr Williams is currently Archbishop of Wales, before that he was Bishop of Monmouth and before that he was Professor of Divinity at one of the country's leading universities.

But more importantly than all that, he is a man with a vision for the Church of England, and a man with the holiness, the humility and the humour to see it through.

By chance Joy and I met Rowan and his family some years ago when we were all staying at a conference centre/retreat house in North Devon.
He was already one of the Church's leading theologians and a man with "A Future" in the Church. But he joined in our debates without any hint of superiority or frustration at being with a bunch of beginners, and shared in his children's delight at being on holiday without the slightest embarrassment or concern for his image.

A few years later, when the Church was still emerging from the bruising debates over whether women should be ordained priests, I met Rowan again as he was working to set up a network for those of us who held dear the traditions and ways of worship inherited from our English Catholic past, but also wanted to celebrate the Church's new openness to women and to welcome them as equal partners in its ministry. His command of the arguments was awesome, his commitment to the cause total, but his generosity to those whom we had come to think of as our opponents obviously genuine and a lesson to all of us.

I said at the beginning that Rowan Williams is a man with a vision.
That vision is for the Church of England to return to centre stage in the life of the nation, not because it enjoys special privileges guaranteed by law, but because by its words and its deeds it commends itself to people's hearts.

He believes, as I do, in a Church that is open to all. In a Church which is at its best when it is following most closely in the footsteps of Jesus. In a Church which is not afraid of admitting that it doesn't have all the answers but is passionately concerned about asking all the awkward questions.

A Church like that will always find itself open to criticism from those who think they do have all the answers; from those who think that there are those in our society who have, by their own actions, put themselves outside the love of God; and from those who want their Church to be the last stronghold of polite Englishness.

Thank God we do not have to fight those battles here in Saint Augustine's, but you would not believe how many of my brother and sister priests still go in fear of the spiritual bullies in their own Churches. I have had a taste of it in other places and I can assure you it's not very nice to be constantly looking over your shoulder in case you offend those who have appointed themselves the guardians of "true religion" in "their" Churches.

Priests in that position need to know that the Church will support them when the poison pen letters start landing on Bishop's desks.
It is a very powerful sign of that support when the Church chooses for its Archbishop someone who has given notice that he will stand, as Christ did, with those who know their need of God, and not with those who know they have God's blessing "because they're worth it".

What we need if we are going to restore confidence in our faith, both within the Church and outside it, is to be able to say with our hands on his hearts,
"It does exactly what it says on the tin".

The Church (of England or of anywhere else) claims to be the body of Christ and the means of salvation. With God's grace and Dr Williams' guidance we may get a little closer to that vision than we have been in the past.

God bless you all,

Alan
1st August 2002