<\/p>\n
On 3 October 2025, the world was told that Sarah Mullally had been selected to be the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury. Twenty-five weeks later, after numerous ceremonies including last week\u2019s \u2018Installation’, she can finally get on with the job.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One man who has been on this journey with her is Joaquin Philpotts, an industrial engineer and lay-minister from Buenos Aires. As was one of five representatives of the Anglican Communion on the Crown Nomination Commission, he spent last summer deliberating over different candidates. In January, he was called to offer part of the \u2018Charge\u2019 at the confirmation of Sarah Mullally\u2019s election and last week he was there at Canterbury Cathedral to\u00a0see her installed.<\/p>\n
His \u2018charge\u2019 was simple\u2019 \u2013 \u201cAs an Instrument of Communion, you are called to minister personally and pastorally to all member churches of the Anglican Communion, especially in collegial partnership with your fellow Primates.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet, as previously reported, the \u2018collegial partnership\u2019 of the Anglican Communion is strained, if not broken, with the leaders of twelve of the forty-two provinces boycotting the Installation. More than a quarter of the Anglican Communion\u2019s provinces can no longer \u201cwalk together\u201d in the way Sarah Mullally\u2019s predecessor hoped.<\/p>\n
Speaking before the service Mr Philpotts, a member of the Church of South America, whose primate was in Canterbury, reflected on the challenges that face Archbishop Mullally.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we are in a very special moment. We\u2019ve got to keep looking to work together but we cannot walk on opposite sides of the street. We\u2019ve got to face our problems \u2013 we have to agree what are problems are and look how to solve them \u2026 I am hearing a lot about unity, but we cannot have unity without order,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mr Philpotts suggested that while it might be that both those in favour of same-sex blessings and those against might be wrong in part, it is not possible for both to be right.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a doctrinal issue, and it is important,\u201d he said, \u201cand that is why I think we cannot keep walking together forever. We have to solve our differences based on the word of God and we can\u2019t think forever that we both believe in the word of God but we interpret it different. The word of God was inspired by the same Holy Spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Referring to Jesus’ words in Matthew 15:12-14, Joaquin warned that Jesus said there will come a time when “He will take out from the root whichever he didn\u2019t like. So that is a huge responsibility for us.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the moment, Mr Philpotts is committed to the Nairobi-Cairo Covenant and the other proposals which the Anglican Consultative Communion will be discussing this summer. He is not convinced by Gafcon\u2019s new Global Anglican Communion, seeing it as a \u201cbreak\u201d in the Communion, which could just lead to further splits.<\/p>\n
Instead he said, \u201cI think we\u2019ve got to focus on Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit and understand that the Nairobi-Cairo proposals to broaden the leadership is not a solution \u2026 it is not only the leadership\u2019s responsibility. Whatever way it broadens, it is not only that, they will have to solve the problems \u2013 we all have to solve the problems.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yet, even at his most optimistic, Philpotts still admitted that, if there are some in the Anglican Communion who will not come back under the word of God, there may come a time when \u201cwe do have to break apart, but we will have to take a lot of responsibility”.<\/p>\n
Despite his fears, there was a freshness in the way that Philpotts spoke that perhaps comes from being part of a Province which has gone through something of a transformation over the past forty years. What was once the preserve of Anglo Argentines, with formal services predominantly in English, has now shifted to reflect Spanish Argentinian culture.<\/p>\n
More than that, there has been a spiritual awakening – the gospel is being proclaimed and there has been rapid numerical growth. The expat English community is now seen as \u201can opportunity\u201d for evangelism.<\/p>\n
So, it was unsurprising that his prayer for the Archbishop of Canterbury as she begins her new ministry is simple: \u201cMy prayer for her, my personal and special prayer is that she preaches a bold gospel. Bold, not bold preaching, but the preaching of a bold gospel \u2013 we have to let the world know about the gospel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Susie Leafe is director of Anglican Futures, an organisation that provides pastoral and practical support to orthodox Anglicans.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On 3 October 2025, the world was told that Sarah Mullally had been selected to be the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury. Twenty-five weeks later, after numerous ceremonies including last week\u2019s \u2018Installation’, she can finally get on with the job.\u00a0 One man who has been on this journey with her is Joaquin Philpotts, an industrial engineer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25353,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[3380,7024,4637],"class_list":["post-25352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-christian-living","tag-anglican","tag-communion","tag-unite"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}