Why Archbishop Sarah Mullally Is Irrelevant to the Anglican Communion
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COMMENTARY
David W. Virtue, DD
April 10, 2026
The unspoken truth about the new Archbishop of Canterbury is that she is entirely irrelevant to the present and future of the Anglican Communion. Nothing she has said or apparently believes will move the needle toward either greater unity or meaningful growth.
A Communion Already Fractured
To understand why, one must appreciate the structural collapse that preceded her appointment. The Anglican Communion — once a family of 85 million baptized members across 165 countries, (now 100 million) bound together by the four Instruments of Communion — has been fracturing for decades. The fault lines deepened dramatically after the US Episcopal Church consecrated Gene Robinson, an openly gay man, as Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003. That act triggered the Jerusalem Declaration of 2008, the formal launch of GAFCON (the Global Anglican Future Conference), and the eventual birth of the Global Anglican Communion (GAC).
Today, GAFCON represents the only genuinely global Anglican player, encompassing the majority of the world's practicing Anglicans — concentrated overwhelmingly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The Anglican Consultative Council (ACC), one of the four historic Instruments of Communion, is no longer recognized by this new world order and has been rendered effectively impotent. Most African Anglican provinces have abandoned it. The Global South Fellowship of Anglicans (GSFA), while not yet formally aligned with GAFCON, has similarly distanced itself from Canterbury's authority. Unity, in any meaningful institutional sense, has already been shattered.
Sarah Mullally inherits the ash heap of that collapse.
The Slow Work of Her Predecessors
The groundwork for this moment was laid by two previous archbishops. George Carey (1991–2002), though personally evangelical, presided over a communion increasingly at war with itself over women's ordination and human sexuality, and proved unable to hold the center. Rowan Williams (2003–2012), a theologian of genuine brilliance and an Affirming Catholic by conviction, brought intellectual sophistication to Canterbury but navigated the sexuality crisis with deliberate ambiguity — satisfying no one and accelerating the drift of the Global South. Justin Welby (2013–2023), a soft evangelical with a corporate background, staked his legacy on the Lambeth Calls of 2022, which sidestepped binding authority on sexuality and left orthodox provinces feeling betrayed. His resignation in 2024, following the Makin Review into the John Smyth abuse scandal, was a further institutional humiliation.
Each archbishop, in his own way, deepened the crisis he inherited. Mullally is the product and inheritor of that cumulative failure.
The Problem of Her Appointment
That she is the first woman in 1,400 years to occupy the throne of the See of Canterbury is not, for a significant portion of global Anglicanism, a milestone to celebrate. It is, for many, a reason for mourning — and a final confirmation of Canterbury's direction of travel. Anglo-Catholics and the majority of conservative evangelicals do not recognize the ordination of women to the priesthood on theological grounds, a position held consistently for two millennia across Catholic, Orthodox, and much of Anglican tradition. Their objection is not cultural conservatism; it is theological conviction rooted in apostolic order.
Her appointment was, in effect, a deliberate signal to the two most theologically orthodox constituencies within the Church of England – evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics. They were told, without ambiguity, that their convictions no longer shape the institution's self-understanding.
Theological Vacancy at the Center
Mullally's background is that of a nurse and health service administrator — a National Health Service career that earned her the title Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire before her ordination. She brings genuine gifts in pastoral management and institutional leadership. But these are not the primary qualifications demanded of a leader tasked with speaking authoritative theological truth to a communion in existential crisis.
Her theological formation is thin by the standards of her predecessors. Whatever one thought of Rowan Williams's conclusions, he was a patristics scholar of international standing. Mullally is, by most accounts, a capable manager of people and processes — a quality useful in a hospital trust, less sufficient for the Archbishop of Canterbury of a hundred million souls.
Broad Church to the End
Theologically, Mullally fits squarely within the Broad Church tradition — the third of Anglicanism's three historic streams, alongside Anglo-Catholicism and Evangelicalism. In practice, contemporary Broad Church progressivism operates on a simple axiom: hold your beliefs lightly, do not insist on doctrinal boundaries, and above all, do not bang the drum for orthodoxy. Sincerity of conviction matters more than its content. Inclusion is the supreme virtue.
It is, by any honest reckoning, a recipe for continued spiritual and institutional decline.
The symbolism of her installation was telling. She was received at Canterbury Cathedral by a dean living openly in a same-sex partnership. No commentary was needed. The theological direction of her tenure had already been declared — not in words, but in the company she keeps and the arrangements she visibly endorses.
Conclusion
Sarah Mullally does not represent the Anglican Communion's future. She represents the final chapter of a particular ecclesial experiment — a progressive, inclusivist, post-doctrinal Anglicanism centered on the Church of England and its dwindling Western allies. The future of global Anglicanism, by every demographic measure, belongs to the orthodox provinces of Africa, Asia, and the Global South, who have already voted with their feet.
Canterbury still commands a building, a title, and a ceremonial role. What it no longer commands is the communion.
END