Immigration conversations are dividing us, says Archbishop of Canterbury-elect
Dame Sarah Mullally made history in October when she became the first woman named to take the leading role.
The incoming Archbishop of Canterbury has warned in her Christmas Day sermon that “our national conversations about immigration continue to divide us, when our common humanity should unite us”.
Dame Sarah Mullally made history in October when she became the first woman named to take the leading role.
She was formally elected as the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury in a traditional ceremony at Canterbury Cathedral in November, and she will be legally made Archbishop of Canterbury in January.
Acting in her current role as the Bishop of London, she told St Paul’s Cathedral on Christmas Day: “Joy is born exactly where despair expects to triumph.
“As joy breaks through in our lives it gives us the opportunity to become people who make room.
“Room in our homes. Room in our churches. Room in our public conversations and in the attitudes we hold.
“The joy asks us to allow our lives to be interrupted by the needs of others, just as the people of Bethlehem were interrupted.”
Dame Sarah, 63, continued: “This insight matters because our own society carries uncertainties that can wear us down.
“Many feel the weight of economic pressure. Some feel pushed to the margins.
“Our national conversations about immigration continue to divide us, when our common humanity should unite us.”
Families struggle to find secure housing, she said, while “our understanding of what it means to live and die well” is being challenged by the “complexities” of assisted dying.
Many people also “experience the hardship and injustice of inequality”, she said.
The bishop told St Paul’s: “These issues do not define the whole of our life together, yet they can leave us wondering whether the world is fraying at the edges.
“We who are Christians then hold fast to joy as an act of resistance.
“The kind of joy that does not minimise suffering but meets it with courage.”
The Confirmation of Election ceremony at the same cathedral on January 28 will see Dame Sarah legally become Archbishop of Canterbury.
Dame Sarah will remain Bishop of London until then and her enthronement will take place at Canterbury Cathedral on March 25.
She told the Christmas congregation: “God chooses to be born precisely into a world like ours. A world of limited resources and crowded homes.
“A world of political tension and uncertainty. A world where people do their best to offer kindness even when they feel stretched. God does not wait for perfect conditions.
“God arrives in the midst of the incomplete.”
The 105th archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, formally resigned in early January having announced his intention to stand down two months earlier over failures in handling a safeguarding scandal.
