Robert Runcie - Archbishop of Canterbury

Archbishop of Canterbury

Runcie was selected as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1979. Ironically, in view of his future relations with the Conservative government, there is evidence that Runcie was actually the second choice of the Crown Appointments Commission, the first choice, Hugh Montefiore, having proven politically unacceptable to the then newly elected Conservative government. He was installed as archbishop on 25 March 1980.

During his time as Archbishop of Canterbury he witnessed a breaking down of traditionally convivial relations between the Conservative Party and the Church of England, which was habitually if rather inaccurately described as "the Tory party at prayer". This was due mainly to the Church's pronouncements on political matters and Margaret Thatcher's support for the ethos of individualism and wealth creation, and her claim that "there is no such thing as society", which many in the Anglican church thought was uncaring and anti-Christian.

In 1981, Runcie officiated at the marriage of Charles, Prince of Wales, to Lady Diana Spencer, despite suspecting privately that they were ill-suited and that their marriage would not last.

On 11 March 1982, Runcie attempted to give a speech in St Nicholas Parish Church in Liverpool but was shouted down by people angry about the Pope's prospective visit to Britain. They shouted that Runcie was a traitor, a liar and was selling the Anglican Church down the road to Rome. After interruptions of the service, Runcie asked them to listen to chapter five of St Matthew's Gospel: "For they are the words of Jesus himself" but they replied: "You had better read your Bible yourself. You are a traitor and a Judas". Outside, demonstrators held placards with the inscriptions "Rome Rules Runcie", "Our Faith Our Bible", "Revive Reformation", "Calvary not Popery", and "Jesus What More". Afterwards, Runcie said: "I am trying my best to find forgiveness for them, but it is very upsetting". Cardinal Basil Hume called the demonstration "particularly abhorrent and a scandal".

On 17 March 1982, Runcie gave a speech to the National Society for the Promotion of Christianity in which he said that Christianity should play a crucial part in the religious education of all pupils, even if they were non-Christian: "While recognising that a truly pluralistic society should not merely tolerate diversity but value and nurture it, I must also express the fear that at times we seem tempted to sacrifice too much of our native Christian tradition on the altar of multi-culturalism".

With a dramatic gesture of goodwill, he knelt in prayer with Pope John Paul II in Canterbury Cathedral during John Paul's visit to Great Britain in 1982.

On 18 April 1982, Runcie said in an interview with London Weekend Television that he hoped the Church of England and the Catholic Church would be unified by the year 2000: "I dream of unity with Rome, and with the great Reform tradition and with the orthodox, by the end of the century, but we will have to get a move on, certainly, if that is our target. I don't not see why we should not have that target". Runcie said of the office of Pope: "There is advantage in having a central focus of affection, even a central spokesman to articulate what the churches in different parts of the world are thinking. I think Anglicans recognise that there is value in that sort of concept". He also played down the Queen's role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England: "Our entanglement with Crown and Parliament is not very considerable now. The Queen's position in the life of our church is very much a symbolic position. She is, as it were, a chief lay person in our church rather than somebody who has a decisive voice in all our appointments".

In 1985, there was friction between the Church of England and members of the Conservative Government, in particular Norman Tebbit, over the Church's report "Faith in the City", which criticised the government's handling of social problems in British inner-city areas. As a result of this, Tebbit became a strong supporter of the disestablishment of the Church of England, claiming that institutions affiliated to the British state should not express what he saw as overtly partisan political views.

Much of the middle period of Runcie's archiepiscopate was taken up with the tribulations of two men who had been close to him—the suicide of Gareth Bennett, and the kidnapping of Terry Waite.

When Runcie visited the Pope in 1989, he set out to reconcile the Church of England with the Church of Rome. Runcie advocated the Papacy as having a 'primacy of honour' rather than 'primacy of jurisdiction' over the Anglican church, a proposal consistent with the report of the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission. The Pope did not go along with this, however, claiming that the Papacy already has primacy of jurisdiction over all other churches regardless of whether or not this is officially recognised and also that the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church would not change to accommodate Runcie's proposals.

In terms of internal Anglican matters, much of Runcie’s archiepiscopate was taken up with the debate over whether to proceed with the ordination of women in the Church of England as well as the fallout from the ordination of women priests and consecration of women bishops in other parts of the Anglican Communion. Runcie's position on the matter had been described as "nailing his colours firmly to the fence" – his liberal theology conflicting with his instinctive conservatism. As a result, he often seemed like a rabbit in the headlights, mistrusted by both sides of the debate. The traditionalist wing of Anglo-Catholicism, in particular, felt that he had betrayed them by not becoming a forthright opponent of women priests and resented him as a result.

The church's attitude to homosexuality was also a divisive issue during this period, although it did not assume the crisis proportions it would in the late 1990s and 2000s. Although in public Runcie stuck to official Church of England policy as set out in the publication Issues in Human Sexuality, that homosexual practice was not ideal for lay people and unacceptable for clergy, in private he held a more sympathetic view and consciously ordained a number of openly gay men as priests.