Watch: First Female Archbishop Heckled at St Paul's Confirmation

The Anglican church has consecrated its first female Archbishop of Canterbury in the 1,400-year history of the role, but the ceremony was interrupted by a dissenting priest who has claimed she was complicit in alleged safeguarding failures that led to the suicide of a London priest in 2020.

The former chief nurse of England, Suffragan Bishop of Crediton, and Bishop of London Dame Sarah Mullally was confirmed as the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury at St Paul’s Cathedral on Wednesday. The “theological liberal” is now the senior bishop and “spiritual leader” of the worldwide Anglican Communion, one of the world’s largest, including the Church of England, the Episcopal Church in the United States, and many others in 165 nations.

Yet the size of that global communion is unclear as her appointment last year, confirmed this week and to be installed in Canterbury in March, heralded a split in the already long-shaky alliance between English liberal theologians and scripture traditionalists in Africa and Asia. As reported in October, GAFCON, the Africa-focussed Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, said in a statement that the appointment “abandons Anglicans”.

The Anglican Church in Nigeria called the decision “devastating” and “insensitive to the conviction of the majority of Anglicans who are unable to embrace female headship in the episcopate.”

Some criticisms of Mullally were not merely about gender but instead focussed on the quality of her leadership during her time as Bishop of London, and her closeness to the sex abuse and safeguarding scandals that forced the previous Archbishop to resign in 2024. These criticisms manifested themselves in the confirmation service at St Paul’s Cathedral on Wednesday.

In a dramatic moment akin to a wedding ceremony where the assembled are invited to object to the union, a priest presiding stated the pro-forma words of the ceremony, saying: “…this mandate is a certificate which verifies that public notice was duly given as required and no person has appeared in opposition to the confirmation”.

In response to this, a priest in the cathedral shouted out “I did”, and was quickly bundled out of the building by vergers. Ignoring the commotion, the ceremony continued, with a member of the official party reciting: “…full opportunity having been given for opposers to appear, whose objections could be lawfully received, and not having appeared as ordered, we now proceed with the process of confirmation”.

The Church Times states the dissenting priest is Father Paul Williamson, a London vicar who was forcibly retired by the Church of England against his will. The Times states his heckling was over the now-Archbishop’s handling of safeguarding while Bishop of London.

Evidently conscious of the allegations by Williamson and others against Mullally, the Church of England put out a statement before the service to get ahead of criticism and assert she’d addressed safeguarding issued with “care and rigour”, reports The Daily Telegraph.

Documents show Williamson submitted a complaint to the Church of England’s safeguarding authority to complain about Bishop Sarah in 2024 over the death by suicide of London priest Father Allan Griffin in 2020 who was falsely subjected to “unsubstantiated allegations of child abuse”. Williamson accused Mullally of incompetence and malfeasance, but the Church of England dismissed the complaints against the Archbishop-elect earlier this month.

Wednesday is not the firs time Williamson has objected to the enthronement of a bishop. He spoke out at the ceremony to make John Sentamu as Archbishop of York in 2005, stating then that Sentamu had spoken out in favour of women priests. He then objected again at the consecration of Bishop Libby Lane, the first ever woman bishop in the Church of England in 2015.

In scenes comparable to those this week, the bishop presiding over the consecration of Bishop Libby asked the congregation whether anyone present objected to the proceedings and Williamson stepped forward, and said: “No, not in the Bible. With respect, Your Grace, I ask to speak on this absolute impediment, please.”

The presiding bishop — who coincidentally was Archbishop Sentamu, to whom Williamson had objected ten years ago — paused for a moment but carried on with the service regardless as if nothing had happened. The Church of England shrugged off the protest at the time, calling Williamson a “serial protester”.

Speaking to Sky News after the event 2015, Father Williamson said of his objecting to the first ever female bishop: “Lord Jesus Christ made a very deliberate choice of those who were to carry on his works…. there’s a little clue in what [Bishop Libby] said, she hopes to ‘inspire women’. A bishop is suppose to inspire everybody”.