CONFIRMED: JUSTIN WELBY FOR ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY

 

Sources have confirmed that the Eton-educated bishop will be announced as successor to Dr Rowan Williams as early as Friday, after the Crown Nominations Commission put his name forward to Downing Street. 

It marks a meteoric rise for the former oil executive who has been a bishop for only a year, but insiders described Welby as "the outstanding candidate".

The bookies and Ruth Gledhill were right.

Bishop Welby supports women bishops, but so far as I can discern, he probably does not favor either same-sex marriage or gay bishops.

UPDATE FROM THE BBC:

In a pastoral letter to his diocese on the issue he wrote how he was "committed to and believes in the ordination of women as bishops".

He has been less forthright about his views on homosexuality. While he has rigorously defended the Church's right to oppose single-sex marriages, he has also been keen to accommodate opposing views expressed from a position of deeply held faith.

BREAKING...MAY EVEN BE TRUE

Ruth Gledhill in the Times says:

Speculation grew tonight that the Bishop of Durham Justin Welby is about to be unveiled as the next Archbishop of Canterbury after a leading bookmaker suspended betting on the race.

Well, if the bookies and Ruth don't know, who does?

H/T to Ann Fontaine at The Lead.

Just a little something to take your mind off the election. Whew! I need a break.

BISHOP JUSTIN WELBY - CENTRAL CASTING ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY?

Although he's fourth in line behind Christopher Cocksworth, Graham James, and John Sentamu, Giles Fraser likes Bishop of Durham Justin Welby for Archbishop of Canterbury.

Paddy Power has him as 6:1 to be the next archbishop of Canterbury. But Justin Welby, the Bishop of Durham, is having none of it. He really doesn't want the job. "Lets be clear, I'm one of the thicker bishops in the Church of England," he tells me. I'm not taken in by this disarming self-deprecation – something for which Old Etonians like him are not especially noted. No, there is nothing remotely thick about Bishop Welby. 

Ah well, I don't know whether Bishop Welby is thick or not, so I'll take Giles' word for it that he's not.  For the sake of my English friends, I hope and pray for a wise choice by the Crown Nominations Commission.  For the sake of the Anglican Communion, too, although I hope the leaders of the Episcopal Church will never again be as obsequious to another Archbishop of Canterbury as they have been at times to Archbishop Rowan.  I also nurse a small hope that the next ABC might like the members of the Episcopal Church just a little and have the occasional kind word for us, unlike Rowan Williams who seemed so often to scorn, scold, and lecture.

"I have tried to avoid saying anything," he admits at the end of the interview. Well, I'm not sure he succeeded. On many levels he seems like a central-casting Church of England bishop. On the subject of women bishops he speaks of the need to square the circle, reconciling those who think it a theological necessity and those who think it a theological impossibility. How do you do this? "Well, you just look at the circle and say it's a circle with sharp bits on it."

On the question of women bishops, Bishop Welby surely succeeded in not saying anything to me, for I have no idea what he means by his "circle with sharp bits on it".  Still, he'd have Giles Fraser's vote, if he had a vote, which should count for something.