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Archbishop Of Canterbury In Australia

by | Thu, Oct 20 2022

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The head of the global Anglican Church has been reflecting on his whistle-stop two week tour of Australia.

For Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby it was a journey of understanding and healing with Indigenous people over the church’s legacy of abuse.

The Church Times reports the Archbishop as saying it was a huge challenge for the Church to be seen to be “doing justice”.

He was deeply moved by what he called his ‘joyful’ ordination of three Aboriginal women at Queensland’s Yarrabah community.

One of the new priests Reverend Valmai Connolly said it was a historic moment:

“I am just so honoured and I appreciate him coming all this way to ordain us local women. It is so important for First Nations women to be in the clergy because our people need a voice.”

Archbishop Welby heard from Thursday Islanders on how they’re coping with rising sea levels and visited the flood ravaged town of Lismore, saying they were proof that climate change really matters.

He was also challenged by divisions in the Australian church.

The Church Times reports he was “saddened and disappointed” by the refusal of Australia’s largest, richest and most deeply conservative Diocese in Sydney not to recognise Archbishop of Perth Kay Goldsworthy — the nation’s most senior female Anglican — whom he met during his tour.

Following the establishment of the breakaway Diocese of the Southern Cross he appealed for would-be separatists to stick with the church.

Dr. Welby said despite internal church divisions over same-sex relationships in Australia and elsewhere, he was hopeful for the future of the Anglican Communion.

He concluded: “We need to cope better with internal differences of opinion in the Church. We have to learn, all of us, how to love one another better, and to listen to the prayer of Jesus in John 17.21 [‘that they may all be one’]”.

“We are doomed if we do not live as the people of love.”