Justin Welby: A case for his defence

The state of the Church of England really isn't his fault, writes George Pitcher

There’s a palpable sense that attacks on the Archbishop of Canterbury are building momentum in these dog days of August. A dear friend, a senior figure in newspapers, writes to tell me that a memoir I’m planning on my first 20 years of ordained ministry should contain a “savage attack” on Justin Welby in order to sell well.

Elsewhere, religion commentators are writing that he “can’t read the room”, building on allegations that he has “appeared tired and short-tempered” in meetings. Either that, or he’s ridiculed for some initiative or other, such as allegedly re-naming original church schemes as “New Things”.

End-of-career feel

It all has an end-of-career feel to it, like Rishi Sunak’s election speech in the rain. He will have to go in any event when he turns 70 at the start of 2026, so the vultures are circling. It’s easy to be dismissive when a high profile figure approaches enforced retirement.

Lambeth Palace: A court not an organisation

I’ve never met Welby. I hear he’s a good and nice man. I carry no torch nor hatchet for him, but I thought in the spirit of a contrarian I would mount some sort of defence, or at least a plea in mitigation. It’s really too easy to join a mob shouting “loser” at a figure as they approach the exit door. We’re meant to stand up for the oppressed and marginalised and that includes archbishops.

Archbishop’s impossible job

The first thing I’d want to say is that the job of Archbishop of Canterbury is impossible. It’s too big and – like that of prime minister – it is bound to end in failure, if not in tears. Any bishop is meant to be a unifying figure and an archbishop is supposed to be an arch-unifier. That’s a big enough challenge for the chief cleric of the Church of England, but holding together a congenitally fractious worldwide Anglican communion is like trying to stop ferrets fighting in a sack.

The leader of the Anglican communion has no choice but to commit to unity. He has to pretend that African evangelicals can be held in concord with east-coast American liberal episcopalians on matters of sexuality and gender.

Welby’s predecessor Rowan Williams just about managed it at the heavily boycotted 2008 Lambeth Conference, but it rips you apart. To hold it all together, poor Welby has had to express joy at the Church’s blessing of same-sex couples, while assuring that same Church that he won’t conduct them himself. It makes Lilliput look like a model of governance.

Fragile mental health

The role would confound anyone in robust good health. Welby is not one such person. His mental health, as with many in Church leadership roles, is fragile. He concedes that he has needed to be prescribed anti-depressants. On occasion, he has seemed close to tears in television interviews. It is not his fault if he is not mentally robust enough for the job, because no one is.

Furthermore, the machine he operates doesn’t work. Not just the whole of the Church of England, which I’ll come to in a moment, but the management function that is Lambeth Palace, where his staff operate. I served there for a year as Williams’ chief public affairs flack and it’s a court not an organisation. Courtiers jostle for preferment on a journey of self-entitlement rather than actually manage things (especially New Things).

The aim is to contain the Archbishop within the Lambeth bubble, to keep the world beyond its aged ramparts at bay. Heaven forfend that these courtiers should actually implement a strategy – their job is to ensure that as little as possible occurs, before they are appointed as bishop or dean of an Oxbridge college.

Hopes for corporate structures

There were hopes that Welby might break up this court in favour of corporate structures that he will have been familiar with in his first career as an executive at Enterprise Oil. Instead, he appointed more uber-courtiers. That, admittedly, is his fault, but he can’t be blamed for what they do. Or, rather, don’t do.

What could be done in the 18 months or so that he has left to save his legacy? Well, if he has the energy, he could still grasp a few nettles. This is more likely to be a prescription for his successor (from, it has to be said, a very unpromising field), but there are plenty of us out here who would cheer him on.

He should move his executive seat out of Lambeth and take it transpontine to Church House in Westminster, where the real management is done. He would effectively be non-executive chairman to a chief of staff as CEO. Leave Lambeth Palace for its museums and ceremonial occasions.

Parishes as franchises

From Church House, he should abandon managerialism in favour of autonomy for parishes under light-touch regional dioceses. Parishes would effectively work as franchises, buying specific licensed services from central management (including parish priests). But otherwise central management would be hands-off. A similar model could be adopted for the international Anglican communion, which doesn’t work anyway.

Welby won’t have the time or the energy to do all that’s required to achieve this. But whoever does do it will go down as a great reforming Archbishop. Meanwhile, it really isn’t Welby’s fault if it isn’t him.

George Pitcher is a visiting fellow at the LSE and an Anglican priest