Archbishop of Canterbury: Lord Speaker's Corner

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In this episode

‘This morning, even this morning, I was in my prayer saying to God, "What am I doing here?”’

In this expansive interview, he speaks to the Lord Speaker about his early life, what drew him to the church from the oil industry and the path to ultimately become Archbishop. He shares that he had an unlikely route to ordination, let alone becoming Archbishop, having been told ‘there is no place for you in the church.’ He also reflects on his time as bishop in Coventry, Durham and Liverpool, including his work on poverty, reconciliation and the Community of the Cross of Nails, and meeting the Pope. Lord McFall also asks about their joint work on the banking sector following the 2008 financial crisis, whether politics and religion can intersect, and what the Archbishop’s hopes are for the next generation.

‘I think that in the public sense, you put on a role, you wear it… Privately, we're just the same as anyone else. We wonder about the right thing to do.’

The Archbishop also discusses the experience of his sometimes very public role, occasionally acting as ‘vicar to the country’ and offers an insight into his part in both the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II and the coronation of King Charles III.

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Transcript

Lord Speaker:

Archbishop of Canterbury, welcome to the Lord Speaker's podcast. We have been friends and acquaintances for quite a number of years and it's a real privilege for me to have a conversation with you this morning. And I'll call you Justin, and you call me John, from now on.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

That's very nice, John. Thank you.

Lord Speaker:

First thing to say to you is that you wear fancy clothes. Sometimes you have on exotic headgear, your neighbour across the Thames is the Prime Minister, you can walk up to Buckingham Palace to see your friend, King Charles at any time, do you suffer from imposter syndrome?

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Appallingly. I get up early in the morning and I take some exercise and I spend some time praying. And this morning, even this morning, I was in my prayers saying to God, "What am I doing here? I must be the worst archbishop there has been for many, many centuries." [laughter] A real sense of being completely fraudulent.

Lord Speaker:

The two of us were present at the death of Queen Elizabeth, very sombre occasion, and so well-conducted by yourself. And I was privileged to be at the Coronation, having a front row seat.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

I remember.

Lord Speaker:

Where you had the primary position. And it touched me when you put the crown on King Charles's head, you stepped back and looked to say, "Is it right on?"

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Is it level?

Lord Speaker:

And then went back. It reminded me of going for a suit with the tailor, he gets you done and he say, "Wait a minute, the shoulders, it's lying right at the shoulders." So that was a very human thing.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

It was one of two blunders I made in that service. I shouldn't have done that, but-

Lord Speaker:

I think it was wonderful.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Well, thank you. It is very noticeable. I made two mistakes in that service. But it was... You are quite right, the funeral, it was sombre but it was so powerful. And I think one of my curious moments was actually the catafalque and the coffin, with Her Late Majesty in it, arriving at Westminster Hall. You must have been there.

Lord Speaker:

I was at the Hall, yeah.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

I don't know if you remember, I was standing by the door, I don't know quite where you were, and it was a hot September day, and the sun was getting a bit lower and you could see these long shadows ahead of the Household Cavalry who were dismounted with their plumes. And I was looking at them as the shadows before they actually appeared, and the shadows were wrong. And when I looked, when they arrived, I realised because they all had their sabres reversed over their shoulders. And that was the moment when I realised that this was real. It sort of hit me very powerfully at that moment. But with all the most senior people in the country to receive the coffin in Westminster Hall, in this extraordinary historic place, I found that of one of the most moving parts of the service.

Lord Speaker:

I found it the most solemn occasion possibly I've been at, but somehow didn't feel a sad occasion.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

No, I agree with you. There was a huge sense of a life well-lived and properly completed. That is a gift that all of us would like.

Lord Speaker:

In terms of your early life. Now, you've made it very open that you were the son of alcoholic parents, but you went to Eton, then you went to Cambridge and then you became an oil executive, classic establishment route forward.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

I know.

Lord Speaker:

But then, you had the road to Damascus and then you became a priest as a result of that. How did you navigate that journey?

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Well, growing up was pretty complicated to put it mildly. And there was a lot of moving around, moonlight flit on one occasion to avoid the rent, I think that was probably the case with my father who was drinking very heavily at the time. And then when I was in the oil industry, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I worked in, particularly the last six years, in a really wonderful company with great colleagues. And then there was a very clear sense of God's call to ordination. And my wife and I, we had three children by then and my wife and I sat and prayed about it and talked about it, took a day out to fast and pray about it.

And at the end of the day, we'd drawn down some paper, a line down the middle, and the reasons not to and reasons to do it. And at the end of the day we had three pages not to and one line to do it. Was, ‘if this is God, then it's the best possible choice.’ And so you don't decide to get ordained. You decide to offer yourself to the church, and the church decides. And by the skin of my teeth, I got through the process.

Lord Speaker:

But am I correct in saying the Bishop of Kensington said, "There is no place for you in the church."

Archbishop of Canterbury:

He said, "There's no future for you in the church." Yes. He said, "Of the more than thousand potential ordination candidates that I've interviewed, you don't come in the top thousand."

Lord Speaker:

Very good. How wrong he could be as a result of that. But then you had experience in Coventry, in Durham, in Liverpool, and then Canterbury. And we had the privilege of sitting together in the chamber when I was Senior Deputy Speaker, and I was sitting on the Bishops’ bench, and I remember you telling me about your experience in Liverpool. And when you came down to Liverpool, yourself and Catherine, said that London is a foreign country.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Oh, you remember that? Yes.

Lord Speaker:

Yeah, I do remember that.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Absolutely.

Lord Speaker:

And by the way, I had Michael Heseltine in here for an interview,

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Oh, gosh.

Lord Speaker:

He made the statement that Liverpool changed him.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

It changes. It's a wonderful, wonderful place. It's one of our greatest cities, and they'd obviously say the greatest and I often agree with them. But, Michael Heseltine, when I was there, was still remembered as a hero. As one of those people who backed Liverpool. And I still saw this extraordinary, when I was there 2007 to '11, through the banking crisis, and the great recession. I remember someone in Toxteth, where we were living saying, "What recession? We've been in depression for the last 40 years." And you saw a place - rows and rows of tinned-up houses, dereliction in the docks. It's changed quite a bit. But the poverty is still really extreme, and it's not that Liverpool lacks spirit or entrepreneurial will or get-up-and-go. It's got as much as anywhere, probably in the world, but it's just one of those forgotten places by central government too often.

Lord Speaker:

Then you moved to Coventry as a dean. And Coventry had been bombed in 1943 and the priest at the time, Reverend Arthur Wales who picked up the carpenters’ nails after the bombing and then made the cross of nails as a result.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

That's right.

Lord Speaker:

That's become really symbolic as a result of that. It's lasted. And am I correct in saying that it symbolises the issue of reconciliation?

Archbishop of Canterbury:

It symbolises reconciliation.

Lord Speaker:

And the link with Germany and Dresden?

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Yes, and at the end of the second World War, the dean of Coventry at the time, sent a team, first of all to Kiel, which had been very heavily bombed, and then to Dresden, and because Dresden ended up in East Germany, the communist government refused to let the Frauenkirche, one of the great churches of Dresden, be rebuilt. And after the fall of the wall, the Frauenkirche was rebuilt, and Coventry contributed the cross at the top of the Frauenkirche, a cross of nails, because that sense of the horror of war, the mutual suffering, that Coventry and Dresden endured has embedded that link very, very powerfully, and with many other cities across Germany. There's about 48 places that have a cross of nails to link them to Coventry. And the Community of the Cross of Nails, which I oversaw when I was working there, now has about 250 centres around the world - a very large number in places that have suffered from war. I mean, Hiroshima would be another one.

Lord Speaker:

And then you met Pope Francis and gave him, as a gift, the cross of nails.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Yes.

Lord Speaker:

And if I'm correct, then he gave you a replica of the staff of Pope St. Gregory?

Archbishop of Canterbury:

That's right. It was an extraordinary meeting. I took off my cross and gave it to him, and to my surprise, I didn't know what was coming, he gave me the... Gregory the Great had a beautiful ivory-carved crozier, the thing that bishops carry, which he'd held in his hand in 597 when he sent Augustine here to start the church, the Roman Catholic Church, in England in 597. And I got a wooden replica of it, beautifully carved, and made for a pastoral staff. It was an extraordinary gesture because Francis never does a symbol by accident, he is a genius for symbolism, and it recognised the pastoral responsibilities that Archbishops of Canterbury had. It was a great moment of ecumenical unity.

Lord Speaker:

And you've become a great friend of his. Maybe we can come on to that later, but your interest in conflict areas and poorer areas, there's a common bond between you on that.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Yes.

Lord Speaker:

But am I correct in saying you're the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury?

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Yes, I'm 105.

Lord Speaker:

Absolutely. And every aspirant for Canterbury says nolo episcopari.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Yes.

Lord Speaker:

Does that mean there is not an existing, an ambitious bishop?

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Oh. Well, put it this way, when Rowan announced his retirement and Ladbrokes started putting up the odds, I was 130 to one. So nobody expected it, least of all, me. I think, I don't know. I mean, there probably are people who would like the job, but that's quite a strong disqualification. Most of the bishops I know say, and I believe them, that it's quite a complicated job and they prefer... They're very happy in their diocese.

Lord Speaker:

Yeah, you have no power, but you have responsibility for everything. Is that correct?

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Yes, that's more or less accurate. It's the privilege of the mug throughout the ages.

Lord Speaker:

And your speeches in the Lords, and we'll come onto the Lords issues, but your speeches in the Lords always contain something from the Bible, as a result of that. But some would say you're too evangelical, you're too political. But if Christianity is about changing the world, hence it must be political.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Yes. I mean, going back to Aristotle, politics is about how we organise society. And I think Wes Streeting put it very, very well, because I'm accused of virtue signalling and politics and virtue signalling in politics. Wes Streeting a few months ago was asked about that and he said, "He's the one person in the country whose job description specifically says he is to virtue signal." And I hadn't thought that, but I think that's accurate. That religion, Christian faith or other faiths, if they don't influence the way you understand justice and the way the world should work, they're just in a watertight compartment and what are they worth?

Lord Speaker:

I think St. Basil the Great, you quoted St. Basil the Great in one of your speeches warning about the common need as a means of private gain. Now, that's a really sharp subtle comment on today's society.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

I think that's right. And it was intended as such, and I know you are obviously very, very neutral and impeccably so in your current job, but in the past you were certainly influenced by your own faith in how you saw the world. Roman Catholicism and Catholic social teaching has within it not a sense of common need but of common good. And it's a very, very different thing. It's to say, "What do we do that enables the benefits of an incredibly wealthy society to be spread with justice and righteousness?"

Lord Speaker:

Yeah. And also, I think you quoted Matthew 6:21, "Where your treasure is there, your heart will also be there." But you compare that to the fight for the heart and soul of the country. Do you build your treasures up and then do nothing else? You and I looked at the banking crisis, and perhaps we can come on more to that, but a number of people who have made quite a lot money from banking have said to me, and I think it was echoed by Mervyn King when he came to our committee, that he's met people who've retired from banking who then say, "I want to do something useful."

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Yes. I think what comes to my mind, I'm sorry you're going to get a bit of God here, but I am the archbishop.

Lord Speaker:

Oh, you're here for that.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

It's my job. It comes to my mind is that parable of Jesus about the man who has a big harvest. So he says, "Oh, this is wonderful. I'll build another barn, I'll put all my grain in there and I'll have a really relaxed happy time because I've made lots of money." And Jesus says, and God said to him, "You fool, your soul will be required of you this night." We can't wait and calculate the moment when we're going to serve each other because we don't know how long we'll live and we don't know what opportunities we'll have. I was immersed in the financial world for 11 years, I met fabulous people who I admired hugely. I met people who were not quite the same. We interviewed both on the Parliamentary Banking Standards Commission, and the ones who I most admired had a very broad view of society, were generous with what they had, and sought to do well in the world, not when they retired but right through their life.

Lord Speaker:

Yeah. In fact, one of them said to me that his most contented time was when he was young, he was a student, and he helped out in a house for older people and those with disabilities. So it's touching something that maybe in today's society we're missing.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

There was a report yesterday that came out which pointed out that companies get much better productivity, much better morale, where they have a strong policy of encouraging volunteering, and it needn't be hugely time-consuming. As you say, that sort of thing, just going and helping out where you're not important, you don't matter, nobody cares who you are, and it makes a big difference.

Lord Speaker:

And your faith, is that a vehicle of change? Or is it a bulwark against change?

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Oh, that's a really interesting question. It compels me to welcome change. It compels me. Christian faith is revolutionary because it seeks people who disagree to love one another and it seeks churches to, constantly, to be involved in the process of seeking justice. I was on a Zoom call last night with people from all around the world, and all fairly radical activists, but deeply Christian. And they're seeking indigenous rights, they're seeking reduction of arms sales, and fighting against gun crime in the States, all kinds. And in this country, it was a couple of people, racial justice. And I was so struck that for them, faith meant whatever their instincts, they had to welcome change, because they had to see the change that God wants to make because God's involved in our world. And to work with God to see as my wonderful predecessor, Rowan, who you probably remember.

Lord Speaker:

I do, I do well.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Said once, "Our job is to see what the Holy Spirit is doing and get in there and do it with him."

Lord Speaker:

Yep. Well, in terms of change, I suppose that's where your supporters or critics come in change, as a result of that. But if you look at the Church of England, the past hundred years, almost all of the archbishops have been Oxbridge-educated and all are white.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

All are white. And in the last several hundred years, all are white, and they're probably all Oxbridge-educated.

Lord Speaker:

Does that need changing?

Archbishop of Canterbury:

It is changing. I mean, it's changing. Archbishop of York wasn't Oxbridge-educated. Thinking back, you'll find plenty of others. But if you look at the bishops today, for what it's worth, I'm the only old Etonian, the vast majority did not have a private education. And that means, inevitably, that in the future we're likely to have women, we're likely to have people from global majority heritage, and we're likely to have people who are not Oxbridge-educated. It's certainly not anywhere in the job description.

Lord Speaker:

You have responsibility for the larger Anglican community to the world, and you only have soft power to do that. For example, I think the Archbishop of Nigeria, and we know same sex blessings and their position for women is very sensitive. The Archbishop of Nigeria, I think, said that you are promoting a second reformation.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Oh, good. I'm not. I'm trying... throughout history, we have seen developments in understanding in the church. Newman wrote a wonderful book on this when he was still an Anglican, before he went to Rome. And then he rewrote it when he was at Rome, and it was even better, to be fair. But the church interacts, it's part of its society. It interacts with what's happening in society. When Galileo discovered that the earth went round the sun rather than vice versa, although the church-

Lord Speaker:

What happened to him as a result of that?

Archbishop of Canterbury:

It was not good. That was your lot. But very quickly, and then with the Enlightenment and the science and Darwin, the church realised that it had to change its understanding, and for instance, the early chapters of Genesis, to see that they are not history, they are theology, and they're telling us incredibly important things about the nature of human beings. As we've discovered that, for example, in the thing you suggested that nobody chooses to be gay or straight or bisexual or trans or whatever, that we have to adapt our understanding while still maintaining a church that seeks people to be holy, to be faithful to committed relationships with one another, not to be promiscuous, to seek to love one another and to be loving to others.

And we all know, there's scarcely a family in the country that doesn't know someone who's gay, for example, or gay couples who are wonderful in how they bring up adopted children, or children who've been conceived through interventions, and in the country people realise that's the case. I'm not saying the church just goes with the flow. There are plenty of things the country supports that I really don't, but we do have, when science changes, when the understanding of the realities of the natural world change, and of human nature, we must pay attention.

Lord Speaker:

I suppose some would say that the primary message of Jesus was love one another, love your neighbour. So the respect for same-sex couples or whatever else, that flows from that.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

It does flow from that. He also, Jesus is very clear about the need for holiness and obedience to God's commands, and that's where the disagreement lies. And what the Church of England is seeking to do is just to make pastoral accommodation for different people without changing its doctrine, that biblical marriage is a lifelong union of one man and one woman. And that's what we're seeking to do. It's a difficult process. I mean, Pope Francis has been advocating for praying with and loving people in same-sex relationships very carefully himself, and it's proving as difficult.

Lord Speaker:

He's getting into hot water.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

He's got into very hot water. You find the same thing with the Methodists, you find the same thing everywhere.

Lord Speaker:

Of course.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

It's dealing with changes in the world around us.

Lord Speaker:

Reform in the Lords, before I go into that, maybe just a quick look at the Parliamentary Commission for Banking Standards, because I think we were there originally for a few months.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Two years.

Lord Speaker:

But it went to two years, exactly, as a result. And you were very generous in that you were Archbishop of Canterbury, it was announced, but you still stayed with the Parliamentary Commission for Banking Standards.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

It wasn't generosity, I was fascinated. And I thought it was really important.

Lord Speaker:

Yeah, I think we did a lot of good work there.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

I do too.

Lord Speaker:

And again, I remember us sitting together talking about it. And at root, it was about cultural change in the banks.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Yes, exactly.

Lord Speaker:

My view is, maybe we missed a little bit of a trick there.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

I think we have. I think we have to recognise human nature that people will always be tempted by very large sums of money, and we're talking megabucks. But I think we did miss a bit of a trick. I think the City is one of the great glories of our economy. I really feel that, but it's not always as helpful to our economy as many think. You'll remember that I failed to get an investigation into what the net contribution of the City was since say 1945.

Lord Speaker:

And the productivity.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

And the productivity. Including the crash.

Lord Speaker:

Absolutely.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Because the crash cost directly less. They've got a lot of money back from denationalising the banks, but if you then take into account the costs of the guarantees we gave, which were a trillion pounds, if you take into account the indirect impact of the collapse of the banking system on confidence in the economy, on investment, we still haven't recovered in many parts of the country.

Lord Speaker:

Absolutely. In terms of reform for the House of Lords. First of all, the House of Lords itself, what's the value added to the House of Lords to the political system?

Archbishop of Canterbury:

I think there's two key things. One is that it does the real nitty-gritty detail of revising legislation. I mean, you'll have sat, and I've sat, at one in the morning, as you go through yet another clause that just needs tweaks here and there and there's always people who are very good at it. We've got Law Lords in there. We've got people who understand more law than anyone even knew existed, and are capable of really making good points. You've got experts in every area. If you're doing artificial intelligence, there's always someone who's a world expert. So it's revising legislation and sending it back to the Commons for reconsideration, but it's subordinate to the Commons. There's no question. And quite rightly, because it's not elected. The other great thing is, I think, I'll give you an example. Do you remember earlier in 2024 when David Cameron was Foreign Secretary, there was a debate on foreign policy?

Lord Speaker:

Yeah.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

And the people who spoke in it, I mean, it was an extraordinarily powerful debate. They were real experts in their field. And at the end, David Cameron gave a masterclass in summing up. It was brilliant. Everyone on all sides was saying, "What an extraordinary capacity." And there you got the big picture from people who know what they're talking about. So I think those are the two things. We can't make policy, quite rightly. We can't, except, for a bill for seeking to extend Parliament. We don't have a veto, we don't do money bills, but there is influence without the final word. And I think you look at the States with two equally powerful houses and that just ends up with real clashes. You need something that's a bit more reflective. So that's what I would say we do.

Lord Speaker:

So you would sum that up by saying it's a coalition of the knowledgeable and the willing?

Archbishop of Canterbury:

I would say it's a coalition of the knowledgeable and the wise, I think. Not all of us. I'm not saying everyone in there is wise. I mean, that's absolutely clear, and I'm not including myself. But I've heard, in there, things that have changed my whole view of a particular problem coming from someone who really understands it.

Most bishops, we don't have a whip in the Bishops. Everyone is individual, and they vote on their conscience and on what they believe the right thing is. Quite often cancel each other out because we vote in opposite directions. But on that occasion, most of the bishops were against Brexit. But I remember well, the day after the Brexit referendum, we all said, "Right, that's it. Now we've got to make sure this works as well as it will." We fully accepted that. Plenty of bishops still think it wasn't a terribly good idea, but that's not going to alter how it works.

And I remember wrecking amendments to the Brexit bills, the various bills that went through. We always opposed the wrecking amendments and we were consistent in supporting the government, the Conservative government at the time, in getting done what the people had voted for. I think that's proper in the House of Lords, where something's been in a manifesto or where there's been a referendum and where the governing party is putting that through, you can seek to improve, but you mustn't seek to veto and destroy except in circumstances I've never seen in my life.

Lord Speaker:

So it's a think-again chamber.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

It's a think-again chamber. 'Are you sure? Are you really sure this is a good idea?'

Lord Speaker:

As Senior Deputy Speaker, I had a lot to do with the Bishops, as you know, I still have quite a lot. But I've always respected the work that the Bishops do here because my opinion is that they reflect the issues in their community. For example, Bishop Paul, of Durham, who retired.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Oh, he was... Oh.

Lord Speaker:

On the two-child policy, which is now a big issue. He was in advance of everyone else.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

He was.

Lord Speaker:

He chaired, it's not the proper terminology, but the warm homes, warm areas during COVID, as a result of that. Bishop Alan Smith, St Albans, he came to see me, about his concerns on gambling.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

And he got-

Lord Speaker:

We set up a committee and that had a huge effect. Hasn't solved the problem, but it's taken us forward quite a bit.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

It took us forward a lot. Bishop of Durham was, you're absolutely right. Bishop Paul, and you think of Bishop of Chelmsford, Guli who came here as a refugee at the age of 12.

Lord Speaker:

She had a profound speech about Iran.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Very powerful speech. Usually, does make a very powerful speech. One of the things I noticed because I'm a diocesan bishop, I'm in Canterbury, things about immigration, I listen to people in the diocese the whole time. And I hear both sides and I hear the compassion for those seeking to escape horror. And I hear also the frustration about the impact in the local community. So we effectively were the people who have a set constituency almost in the Lords, and we do our best.

Lord Speaker:

Identity is a big issue now, politically. And there's always a public person and there's a private person. Who are you in the public sense? And who are you in the private sense? Who are you and what am I?

Archbishop of Canterbury:

I think that in the public sense, you put on a role, you wear it. And the Archbishop of Canterbury or ABC as all the internal memos call me. ABC is the senior member of Parliament, is the senior layperson in the country, does all the grand occasions as we've talked about, seeks to lead the church, seeks to work internationally, seeks to influence debates, can be, at moments of stress, a vicar to the country. All these things, speaks publicly for the church.

Privately, we're just the same as anyone else. We wonder about the right thing to do. We have to be those who, and rightly, who pray and seek the will of God. But we're very normal. I'll give you an example. I won't say which one, but one of my kids, after the Coronation, was having a meal with us. And I was on the telly and I was looking at myself and thinking, 'oh yes, that looks quite good.' Slightly self-complacent. And this particular offspring came up behind me, patted me on my head and said, "Dad, you think you're very important. I think you're old and bald." [Laughter]

Lord Speaker:

Well, actually, I had one many years ago when I was an MP, and the local paper had some big issue, problem locally, and the front page was, "Council calls in the big ones." And there was a photograph of me. Very good. And then one of my sons sat at the table and said, "Mum, you have said the world is in a terrible state. Don't you think that it is when you see him as a big one?" So there you are. So that's it. [Laughter]

Archbishop of Canterbury:

What did your wife say?

Lord Speaker:

Oh, she agreed.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Oh, yes. That's what happens at home.

Lord Speaker:

The identity element and the private self, you had an excellent interview in Archbishop's Conversations with Gabriel Byrne. It was a fantastic...

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Oh, it was extraordinary.

Lord Speaker:

He said, about the private self, that the private self always tries to make sense of it.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Yes. I think that was a very, very striking comment. I remember it well. And you try and channel things and enable the private self to be influenced by the public and the public to be influenced by the private. They mustn't be contradictory, but they are complementary. They're not identical.

Lord Speaker:

In terms of the questions, who, what, where, when? You said then that you're asking the wrong questions, as a result of that. Rather, the question should be that who shapes you and who leads you?

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Absolutely. Those conversations were extraordinary. I'm doing a couple more I think later this year. But they're extraordinary. What I'm trying to find out in those conversations is exactly that. How do people in, who have a public persona, how do they work out what's right and wrong? Because that's a real challenge at times. How do they know what to say and what to do? You think of someone extraordinary, I think one of the most extraordinary was Nick Cave, the singer and poet, who's just published another album, which is-

Lord Speaker:

And who's lost family.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

And he's lost-

Lord Speaker:

Two.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Two sons. And listening to how actually, in his case, faith and compassion have shaped his way of thinking, of singing. He brings the two together very powerfully, and it's a remarkable thing to listen to.

Lord Speaker:

You mentioned, as a pastor, you're dealing with people every day who have issues, problems, and having many funerals that you conduct. Grief is at the centre of that. I listened to David Frum who is a Republican strategist talking about the death of his daughter, Miranda. And I know you have shared that. But he said, "When you lose a child, the nights are the worst, in that, the thoughts come crashing to your mind. And it's like seasickness. The grief ebbs and surges with intervals of comparative calm."

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Beautifully put.

Lord Speaker:

Yeah. Now, how do you minister to people in areas like that and how, as far as possible, can you console them?

Archbishop of Canterbury:

I think what we have to understand is that grief, he put it beautifully there, it surges and then you have moments of calm and it will always be with us. I was talking someone the other day, a couple of days back, about this and how they are going through intense personal grief at the moment. Something happened a couple of years ago, someone, they lost a child, they lost. And they say, "I'm always being caught by surprise." I'm not sure. I mean, I think it's different with everyone, how you... One of the things is to enable people to know what they might expect. Everyone grieves differently, but for instance, one of the things I'll often say to people is, things will happen, it will make you wonder if you're losing your mind. You'll forget things. You'll go downstairs and think, why did I come downstairs? You'll forget places and names. You'll forget. You're not going mad. You are overloaded with grief. Don't worry.

I say to people, if you are not finding that the surges and the moments of calm, the balance changes, then make it clear to people. Get some help. There's very good experts in helping people. I say, don't ever say you'll get over it. Don't ever let anyone say you'll get over it. Remember, there'll always be that gap in your life. You have to rebuild your life around the gap, with the gap in it. And the other thing, the key thing someone said to us, they found very useful, my wife and I said to a couple we knew, the big significant days; anniversary of death, birthday, Christmas, attack the day or it will attack you. So do something on the day in which you celebrate the life of the person you lost. We do that on November the 5th, the birthday of the daughter we lost. And we do something that day.

Lord Speaker:

Sexual abuse in the church. I've been involved, when I was an MP, in trying to get some consolation for those who have been sexually abused. And when we look to the church for, first of all, love, understanding, integrity, repentance, and forgiveness, those who have been sexually abused have been robbed of this. And some, can't get over it. I know of a fifty-year-old individual who was contacted by the press as a result of sexual abuse taking place in his former school. And he took the call in the garage rather than the house, because he still, to this day, had not told his family.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

I so understand that. The levels of abuse in the church, historic abuse, and the lack of good systems to prevent abuse, that was the biggest surprise. It's the thing I didn't anticipate in this job.

Lord Speaker:

The Catholic Church is very much suffering from that still.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

It is. And I found out very, very quickly how wrong I was. And it requires a whole cultural change, which certainly, at parish level, we've gone through. You'll always have abusers. There are always wicked people around. The question is, can they be spotted and prevented and will you react properly when you get stories of abuse? It is a dismissal offence in the church to cover up abuse now. And that happens. We've had a significant number of independent reports. We have a whole system in place now. When I came in at Church House in London, there was one person halftime as the centre point for contacts. And most diocese had one or one between two or three diocese.

At Church House now, I can't remember, it's 30 people or 40 people. The budget's gone from £50,000 to over £20 million a year. And it's all over the country. It's something you cannot be complacent about. And even as I'm saying this, I hear the voice of survivors saying, "But you haven't dealt with this yet, archbishop, you haven't dealt with that. You haven't dealt with the other." And they're right. We have made huge progress, but not yet enough.

Lord Speaker:

In terms of that. My own feeling is that there's a relative wall of silence in the church yet, and there's an uncomfortableness to express that from the clergy. And I feel that there's still a view that we have to protect the institution, and that's done at the expense of individual.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

I agree that that can happen. And it's the default reaction. I suppose, Parliament has been going through the same thing over sexual harassment and stuff. And the automatic response is, "Oh, oh, don't say anything. We can't afford that." One of the things Jesus said is, "If you want to be my disciple, you must take up your cross and follow me. Those who seek to guard their life in this life will lose it, and those who are willing to lose their life will gain it." I interpret that for an institution as saying, "To the devil with our reputation, we need to be transparent and honest, and that needs to be the culture." And as I say, we're better, but we're not there.

One of the ways we've done it over the last 10 years, we've had very large number of independent reports, and they are very independent. And that has given us significant criticism, and that's the right thing to do. There comes a point, we've now got a very independent national safeguarding team.

Lord Speaker:

In terms of reform of the Lords, we've got the Labour Party's proposals for abolishing the hereditary peerages, and we had the Lord Speaker's report on reducing the size of the house to 600. That got a bit imbalanced with Boris Johnson coming in. So we've still got quite a bit of work to do on that. But in terms of the issues for the reform of the House, how comfortable are you with it? And do you think maybe the Bishops could be next on the chopping block?

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Funny enough, I was anticipating that question. The reform of the House has to go ahead, and the decision about the Bishops is one for Parliament. It's not for the Bishops obviously, to decide whether they're in or out. I think they make a huge contribution. You've talked about what they do. But if Parliament decides otherwise, that's the prerogative of the House the Commons to decide, and obviously we accept that. I think it would be a great pity. I think it would lose something in the way the constitution works. But it's really up to the House of Commons, that one. And I think clearly there are too many of us. I mean, I've not come across anyone in the House who doesn't say there's too many.

Lord Speaker:

Yeah, the solution for it is the problem. I mentioned Pope Francis and yourself. Again, two individuals who've struck up a friendship, which many people wouldn't have expected. And having spoken to a number of priests in the Church of England, they've admired both your work and Pope Francis in travelling to what Francis called the peripheries. For example, Sudan and Africa. And again, priests have said to me that you have taken on quite a number of risks in a personal sense being over there. But you seem to be driven by the same agenda, whether that's the poverty, the inequality, the environment with Francis, with Laudato si'.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Laudato si'. I've been very fortunate. It's been a huge blessing, the relationship with Francis. He was put in two days before I was. And we joke about that. He says, "I'm the senior by two days." He is the senior in a million other ways, but that's different. But I've learned a huge amount from him. I would certainly see him as someone whose example has shaped, in a fresh way, my theology. His passionate concern for the poor and the excluded has been something that I've taken on board more and more, listening to him. And that's been one of the greatest privileges of my life.

Lord Speaker:

Lovely. On the future, the world and young people. We're not leaving young people with a good legacy.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

No.

Lord Speaker:

And our generation, in many ways, had the best of the world, whether it's in...

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Golden Age.

Lord Speaker:

Yeah, exactly. As a result of that. As a bishop, as a leader of faith, how can you set the young people's hearts on fire?

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Challenge, excitement, adventure, not complacency, not empty reassurances and promises. The thing I was talking to about 300 young people on Friday evening, three days, four days ago, in Bath, mostly teenagers. And I said, "You are to be the revolutionary generation. You ought to be the generation that reshapes what we're doing about climate, about poverty, about equality, about faith." We had a six percent increase in people under 25 attending Church of England churches last year. First time for 70 years or something. And I find real transparency, acknowledging where we've gone wrong, saying to them, I would always say, one of my cliches is, "You can never go wrong by becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ. That's the greatest decision anyone can make in their life. It won't be comfortable. It'll be the most enormous adventure. It'll be hugely challenging, and you'll change the world."

And I find that kind of challenge, I think they're an amazing generation. Snowflakes? Rubbish. They are an amazing generation that look at the world and want to change it. Well, bring it on. And the great threats to our world of vastly growing inequality and of war. And war, of course stops any action on climate change. Of migration, these are things we can change. And they are the people we must educate, we must encourage, we must liberate, to ensure that they can change.

Lord Speaker:

In doing that, I recall the Dominican, Timothy Radcliffe.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Oh, he is wonderful.

Lord Speaker:

He gave the opening homily at the Synod last year.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

He did.

Lord Speaker:

He was asked by Pope Francis. And he said, "Religion is too important to be serious about it." In that, he looked at the Gospel, and the Gospel was lively, embracing, and if you like, humorous at times, with that.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Yeah, humorous.

Lord Speaker:

And he said that we've become too serious instead of being playful with quite a number. And I know myself, sometimes sitting at a church, that you would have the priest saying, "The world is bad. It's evil." But then when we go to the car park, it's full of fancy cars. We then talk to people who are going on their holidays abroad, as a result of that. They embrace the world in every way. But in church we're told, "Oh, no, no, keep away." We're in the world.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

We're in the world. We're not meant to be of the world, Jesus says. We're in the world. And there is so much to be joyful. I start with hope because God raised Jesus from the dead. Death is conquered. The grimness of the world will be overcome in the grace of God. Yes, there's a lot wrong, but there's a lot right as well. I look at, even during the riots in August, what happens? People come out to clear up and to say to the rioters, "Stop that. That's not us." That was inspiring and moving.

Lord Speaker:

As was the NHS - the clapping for that.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

As the NHS, as the election. Do you realise we had an election which completely changed the government, and huge number of changes in holding of seats. And from the time the polls closed to the time we had a new government, without a hint of difficulty, was 14 hours. And the Prime Minister in his farewell speech said to Keir Starmer, Rishi he said, "Your successes will be all our successes." It was gracious, it was swift, it was clean. You and I both know how many places, there is nothing like that.

We've just seen Venezuela where a clear electoral result was overthrown by the military and by a tyrant. The world is not all bad. I find, in politics, that the vast majority of people in politics are well-intentioned, seek to do well, take huge risks. The last campaign was dreadful for women candidates.

Lord Speaker:

Terrible.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

And yet they just gritted their teeth and pushed through. There's a lot to celebrate in the world.

Lord Speaker:

So this concept of being in the world, if I could go back to Francis, he scolded priests for giving sermons that were dense. "No more than eight minutes," he said, "People can understand what's going on." And he also said that what they should do is that they should engage in activities in the role of formation, read poetry, novels, watch films, storytelling.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Exactly.

Lord Speaker:

That's what will get people. So you're at one with that, I presume?

Archbishop of Canterbury:

I'm at one with that. And you talk about humour, if you look at many of Jesus's parables. We lose, they're never read in a way that gives the humour. Take the lost sheep. It's a joke with a sting in the tail. He starts off, "There was this shepherd, and he had a hundred sheep." And they're all thinking, well, shepherds were well known for being a bit ditzy in those days. And not like now, before I get emailed by all the shepherds. But in those days they were a bit ditzy. "So there was this shepherd" and they were all going, "Oh, this is a good one." "He had a hundred sheep, he loses one."

"So he leaves the hundred sheep in the wilderness and he goes off looking for the one." They think, "oh, typical shepherd. 99 more he's going to lose." "And then he finds the sheep, he doesn't go back to the flock, he goes back home carrying it." "Can't it walk?" Everyone's giggling away. And then he says, "God's like that." And you've got a humorous story with a real bite to it. "God's like that. He cares so much for each of us."

Lord Speaker:

Am I correct in saying that Rab Butler was your uncle?

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Great uncle.

Lord Speaker:

Your great uncle.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Yeah, grandmother's brother.

Lord Speaker:

Right. I remember Chris Patten saying about a conversation that Rab had, giving that he was the best Prime Minister we'd never had. Him and Macmillan didn't get on, as a result of that. But a distinguished Chancellor, Home Secretary, the architect of the 1944 Education Act.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Education Act, yeah.

Lord Speaker:

And one of his young staff asked him, "What's the most important lesson that you have learned in politics?" And Rab responded, "Easy," he said, "That it's important to be generous rather than efficient." Now, I would not take that as-

Archbishop of Canterbury:

I didn't know that one.

Lord Speaker:

I would not take that as literal.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

No.

Lord Speaker:

But there seems some political philosophy underneath that.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Yes. I mean, Rab was an incredibly... I knew him quite well, and he brought up my mother during the war. He was an incredibly clever man, and he was very widely-read, and he had a very clear Christian ethic and approach to life. I remember him saying to me one day when I was at college, he said, "Oh, I've just finished reading John's Gospel." And he was talking about that and the need to be generous and to love. It's not a binary choice. You can be generous and efficient, and should be, but that's a classic Rab-ism; clear and pithy. He was a great one for the pithy remark.

Lord Speaker:

Yeah. But was it love underneath that you think?

Archbishop of Canterbury:

It was deep love underneath that. And real care for people, and a very dry sense of humour. And very perceptive about human nature.

Lord Speaker:

Good. Archbishop Justin, we've been friends for many years, and we could go on and on and on. But the curtain has to come down today on it. But can I thank you for coming along, I've always admired your work, your openness, your honesty, your care for the poor, disadvantaged, the message that we are one, it's a community globally, and you have carried that out. So it's been a privilege to have you this morning. Thank you very much.

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Excellent. And, John, thank you. And the admiration, I can assure you, is mutual. The way you lead the House. Thank you.

Lord Speaker:

Thank you very much.