‘Hatred and racism cannot tear us apart,’ first woman Archbishop of Canterbury says

Dame Sarah Mullally, 63, has become the first woman to be named Archbishop of Canterbury in the Church of England’s almost 500-year history.

But before she became a priest in 2006, she had a successful career as a nurse.

Married with two children, she spent over 35 years in the NHS – and became the youngest-ever chief nursing officer for England in 1999.

Although she was volunteering in the Church at the time, it was just a few years later that she decided to become a priest and was quickly tasked with helping make reforms in the way the institution dealt with abuse.

She became canon treasurer at Salisbury Cathedral in 2012, before becoming Bishop of Crediton in the diocese of Exeter in 2015.

As Bishop of London she was seen as someone who used her experience as an NHS administrator to help modernise the diocese.

She said at the time of that appointment: “I am often asked what it has been like to have had two careers, first in the NHS and now in the Church.

“I prefer to think that I have always had one vocation: to follow Jesus Christ”.

One of the areas she has been most outspoken about it is assisted dying – she is a vociferous opponent, as was her predecessor.

And she described the decision to finally allow priests to bless same-sex couples in 2023 as “a moment of hope for the Church”.