George Carey - Theological and Social Positions

Theological and Social Positions

Carey's theological roots are in the Evangelical tradition of the Church of England. He strongly supported the ordination of women but also has close ecumenical links with the Roman Catholic Church, being chosen in 1976 to represent the Church of England at a meeting of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity in Rome.

Carey is tolerant of divorce and divorced people and the remarriage of divorced people. One of his sons is divorced and he also supported the remarriage of the Prince of Wales to Camilla Parker-Bowles, whose first husband is living. He opposed homosexual relationships among members of the clergy, although he admits to having consecrated two bishops whom he suspected of having same-sex partners. He presided over the Lambeth Conference of 1998 and actively supported the conference's resolution which uncompromisingly rejected all homosexual practice as "incompatible with scripture".

Carey was criticised for his lack of neutrality on the issue of homosexuality by those attempting to reach a compromise position which had been presented to the conference by a working group of bishops on human sexuality. Carey also voted against an expressed condemnation (which had been present in the original form of the resolution) of homophobia. The resolution as a whole was described by one of Carey's fellow primates, Richard Holloway, Bishop of Edinburgh and Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, as a betrayal.

Carey said: "If this conference is known by what we have said about homosexuality, then we will have failed." The resolution, however, was the beginning of an escalating crisis of unity within the Anglican Communion around the question of human sexuality which continues. This resolution is at the heart of current divisions within the Anglican Communion on the issue. In 1999 he was one of four English bishops who expressly declined to sign the Cambridge Accord: an attempt to find agreement on affirming certain human rights of homosexuals, notwithstanding differences within the church on the morality of homosexual behaviour. In an interview with Sir David Frost in 2002 he said: "I don't believe in blessing same-sex relationships because frankly I don't know what I'm blessing."

Carey was the first former Archbishop of Canterbury to publish his memoirs. The book, Know the Truth, mentions meetings with the Prince of Wales and Camilla Parker Bowles and his thoughts that they should marry. In 1998 he made a public call for the humane treatment of Augusto Pinochet, the former dictator of Chile, who was at the time in custody in the United Kingdom.

In 2000, Carey was critical of the document Dominus Iesus, issued by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, saying that it "did not reflect the deep comprehension that has been reached through ecumenical dialogue and cooperation during the past 30 years ... the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion does not for one moment accept that its orders of ministry and Eucharist are deficient in any way. It believes itself to be a part of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of Christ, in whose name it serves and bears witness, here and round the world."