Today is the first time Prince William has had anything on his public schedule since January 28th, eight days ago. I even mentioned earlier that William hasn’t been seen all week, and I wondered if it had anything to do with the days-long controversy around the Epstein Files. First off, William met with His Highness The Aga Khan at Kensington Palace. King Charles met with Aga Khan yesterday, so big-boy William needed to have a meeting too! Scooter King, the global statesman of hand-shaking. After that, William and Kate went to meet the new Archbishop of Canterbury.
The Prince and Princess of Wales met today with spiritual leaders in London including the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Dame Sarah Mullally, and Aga Khan. William and Kate sat down with the first woman to hold the role of the head of the Church of England at Lambeth Palace.
Separately, they also met with leader of the Ismaili Muslims, Aga Khan, with the heir to the throne pictured shaking hands with him outside Kensington Palace. In a post on social media, the Prince and Princess of Wales said it was ‘a pleasure’ to welcome Mr Khan to the palace on Thursday morning.
It came after Dame Sarah took her place in the House of Lords in her new role as the Church of England’s top cleric. Dame Sarah Mullally already sat in the upper chamber as the Bishop of London, prior to her historic appointment. The Lords Spiritual have 26 places reserved in the unelected house for senior Church of England bishops, including the archbishops of Canterbury and York.
Dame Sarah was supported by the Archbishop of York, the Most Rev Stephen Cottrell, and the Bishop of Peterborough, the Rt Rev Debbie Sellin, for the short introduction ceremony in the Lords, where she swore the oath of allegiance to the King.
In a statement after the ceremony, Dame Sarah said she was committed to ‘bringing a compassionate voice to my role as an advocate for equity, justice and hope. I will draw on my faith and my practical and pastoral experience as a nurse and a priest, to help scrutinise and finesse legislation that improves the lives of all those who live and work in our country – of all faiths and none.’
The first female Archbishop of Canterbury was officially confirmed as the 106th person to take up the post at a service in St Paul’s Cathedral last month. She filled a vacancy left by Justin Welby who was forced to resign over his handling of a child abuse scandal.
The Church of England is lucky in one regard: after the men in charge f–k up really badly, the Anglicans can appoint a woman to clean up the mess. The Vatican can’t do that! The Catholic hierarchy is stuck having to appoint one dude after another to clean up the catastrophes created solely by dudes. The Anglicans have their fingers crossed that appointing a woman to the position of Archbishop of Canterbury won’t end in yet another child-predator scandal. Anyway, I guess it’s interesting that William and Kate made a point of meeting Dame Sarah. William doesn’t really give a crap about church or religion, but I would assume that Charles probably made the Waleses conduct these meetings.
Photos courtesy of Getty Images, Kensington Palace.