How Justin Welby’s past keeps causing controversy

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Welby has spoken about being “very careful” with his own drinking as a consequence. Yet he transcended his chaotic childhood. He attended Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, and worked for oil companies Elf Aquitaine and Enterprise – although he also had a spiritual conversion while at Cambridge, and, he’s claimed, from age 19 began speaking in tongues.

He was rejected when he first tried for ordination, in 1987: the Bishop of Kensington told him “There is no place for you in the Church of England.” But he was soon accepted and had a rapid ascent, becoming the Archbishop of Canterbury in 2013.

He is supported by wife Caroline, whom he met at Cambridge; the couple have six children. There was a seventh, Joanna, who tragically died aged seven months in 1983, in a car crash in Paris. Welby called it a very dark time, “but in a strange way it actually brought us closer to God”.

His appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury has seemingly fuelled his desire to weigh in on political and social issues, taking what some might see as a “woke” stance. In 2018 he wrote that Brexit had “divided the country”, and that austerity “is crushing the weak”. Welby criticised the Government for capping benefits below inflation, lambasted energy companies for raising prices, and, in 2013, derided payday lending sites – although, embarrassingly, it transpired that the Church of England’s pension fund was linked to Wonga. In 2017, he said that there should not be restrictions on child refugees being admitted to the UK, and that big companies avoiding tax was wrong.

He has always supported the introduction of female bishops, but is more equivocal when it comes to same-sex marriage. In 2023, he abstained in the General Synod vote on introducing services for same-sex couples, claiming that he wanted to remain a unifying figure. He was also criticised for supporting Post Office boss Paula Vennells: he reportedly backed her application to become Bishop of London.

How might this latest remarkable addition to his family tree shape his current views? It was evidently a startling discovery, but his swift, shrewd and socially conscious revocation of his slave-owning ancestor suggests that it will further fuel this progressive’s quest to nudge the church forward, all while keeping a weather eye on its history.

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How Justin Welby’s past keeps causing controversy

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