admin
of the African motherland (you don’t value the sunshine and open spaces of Africa until you live in Europe), I returned to good old grey London in November to learn that the archbishop that Uganda loaned to England did not become the head of the Church of England after all.
“So what happened to Archbishop John Sentamu?”, the headline of a blog written by one Father Stephen Smut asked sarcastically.
“Could it have to do with the colour of his skin?, Father Smut added in the sub-headline, before recounting how when he had tweeted on the day the new head of the Church of England (official title: Archbishop of Canterbury), Justin Welby, was announced, “one of my Tweeter followers snapped quickly back: ‘Almost all the candidates were middle-aged and white. Should they have gone with Sentamu just because he’s black?’ So, too, a British Facebook friend complained about my ‘prejudice’ toward the Church of England. ‘You wouldn’t have preferred the Archbishop of York, would you?’”
The Archbishop of York is still Dr John Sentamu, the number two on the Church’s hierarchy. So why wouldn’t people want him to be the new head of the Church?
Ever since the incumbent Dr Rowan Williams announced last year that he would step down this year as head of the Church, all fair-minded people in Britain and beyond had expected his No.2, Dr Sentamu, a cleric popular with the British people (apart from his anti-gay stance), would naturally step into Dr Williams’ shoes.
But no! The position eventually went to the No.4 on the hierarchy, Justin Welby, who joined the clergy only in 1992 and became an archbishop less than a year ago.
In fact, way back on April 23 2012, the Rev George Pitcher, who says he is much closer to Church rumours than most people, had speculated in his blog that “If Dr John Sentamu isn’t made Archbishop of Canterbury, it won’t be because he is black.” So what, Rev Pitcher, would it be? His stance on gay marriage?
Pitcher’s answer? “I suppose,” he wrote, “it was only a matter of time before the race card was played as candidates jostle for best position to succeed Dr Rowan Williams.”
And who said that? According to Rev Pitcher: “It comes from Arun Arora, who has served as Dr John Sentamu’s chief spin doctor and is about to take the top PR post at Church House, which houses the Church of England’s civil service. He says that Dr Sentamu, who is from Uganda, is the victim of criticism that amounts, at worst, to ‘naked racism which still bubbles under the surface in our society, and which is exposed when a black man is in line to break the chains of history’.”
Rev Pitcher went on to dismiss Arora’s racism charge, saying those who had criticised Sentamu lately, had “concluded that their views are as valid and innocent as if he were a white man. And so I have heard these words: Capricious, impulsive, vain with the media, and quick to temper (as well, I might add, as words such as prophetic, inspirational, generous, and kind). None of these words has anything to do with Dr Sentamu’s ethnicity.”
And prophetically, the self-assured Rev Pitcher added rather pointedly: “For what it’s worth, my feeling is that the moment has passed for John Sentamu and Canterbury. He celebrates his 63rd birthday in about seven weeks’ time, meaning that he would be pushing compulsory retirement age by the next Lambeth Conference in 2018. He’s not been blessed with the best of good health lately and, most importantly, I really don’t think he wants it anymore. We really shouldn’t have another Archbishop of Canterbury who doesn’t want to be.”
So why didn’t Dr Sentamu want it anymore? Remember, Rev Pitcher was writing on April 23 2012. What had the Ugandan seen to not want it anymore? Had the difference between “what’s ours” and “what’s mine” finally dawned on him?
When Justin Welby was eventually announced on 10 November, Dr Sentamu said in a statement: “. . . The tipsters and lobbyists’ predictions can now return to silence.
The appointment of an Archbishop is neither akin to a horse race nor a presidential campaign, and it is a relief that the rumour-mill which has been grinding out misinformation, has now ground to a halt.”
Misinformation? One needed to read between the lines to fully grasp what Dr Sentamu was saying here. Had the “tipsters and lobbyists” worked against him? And why would they do so?
I bet by now you are getting the drift of my enquiry – because as late as October 10 2012, the Daily Telegraph was reporting that: “Dr John Sentamu was a strong contender to take over as the global head of the Anglican church . . .” This came amid claims that church leaders were in ‘deadlock’ and could take months to nominate a new Archbishop of Canterbury.
The nomination process is done by a 16-member Crown Nominations Commission (CNC), which meets in secret and presents a shortlist of two bishops to the prime minister, who, in turn, recommends the leading candidate to the Queen.
Reading the British newspapers in the months leading to the nomination, one could have been excused for thinking that Dr Sentamu had the job in the bag. However, on September 30, Jonathan Petre of the Daily Mail was quoting sources saying the “Ugandan-born Dr Sentamu, who had been tipped as the Church’s first black Archbishop of Canterbury, was a popular and charismatic leader, but may lack the diplomatic skills for Lambeth Palace.”
For those who don’t know, “diplomatic skills” is a code for Sentamu’s franc-parler about gay marriage. The Ugandan, remembering that he was African after all, had been stridently anti-gay marriage. In late January 2012, on a visit to Jamaica, Sentamu had made his strongest stand yet on the subject. Said he: “Marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman.
I don’t think it is the role of the state to define what marriage is. It is set in tradition and history, and you can’t just (change it) overnight, no matter how powerful you are.”
The Ugandan even dared to prophesy that the British government, under Prime Minister David Cameron, would face a rebellion if it attempted to legislate to overturn the traditional definition of marriage.
“The rebellion,” Dr Sentamu predicted, “is going to come not only from the bishops. You’re going to get it from across the benches and in the (House of)Commons . . . The Church has always stood out — Jesus actually was the odd man out. I would rather stick with Jesus than be popular because it looks good.”
If that did not sound like committing suicide so far as promotion to the head of the Anglican Church was concerned, nothing was! In today’s Britain, you don’t say such things and expect promotion to public office, or to an institution as intrinsic as the Church of England is to good old Englishness.
Please don’t get me wrong. I did not cry for Bishop Sentamu when he did not get the job, and would not cry for him! I have my own issues with him — about his stance in the past about certain African issues so intrinsic to Africanness that he appeared to trample underfoot in a bid to win the affection of the British Establishment.
Now, I suppose, he understands that there are certain things intrinsic to nations and those nations would fight tooth and nail to keep those things as theirs, no matter what.
Imagine Dr Sentamu, whipping off his clerical collar on 10 December 2007, and cutting it into pieces live on BBC TV, and vowing never to wear another one until Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe was out of power. The British media loved it, and egged him on. “John Sentamu is a world-class showman who is divinely inspired,” reported Liz Hunt of the Daily Telegraph. (He) is an accomplished media performer who never wastes a sound bite or photo opportunity.
It would be wrong to say that he acts or speaks first and thinks later — he is too clever for that.
But he is a man of instinct. Those instincts are rooted in principle and when he speaks, it is with absolute moral authority of a leader.”
Well, Dr Sentamu enjoyed the adulation then, forgetting that in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, land (which was at stake in the dispute between Zimbabwe and Britain) was as intrinsic to the people and national psyche as the Church of England is intrinsic to the English and national psyche.
Five years on, on November 9 2012, the British daily, The Times, does a 4-page coverage of the announcement of Justin Welby as the new Archbishop of Canterbury, and does not mention the name of Dr John Sentamu once — not even once — in four full pages of text and photos.
In Ghana, our elders say: “No one follows the elephant in the bush and gets wet from the morning dew.” Some merciful African may have to export an elephant from Ghana for the “world-class showman” from Uganda. — NewAfrican
Online Reporter