Synod debate on social care featured mention of Anna Chaplaincies

Archbishop Sarah Mullally giving her presidential address at General Synod last week (Photo credit: Church of England)

'As Archbishop of Canterbury, I commit myself to nurturing, supporting and praying for all our parishes, chaplaincies, cathedrals and schools, where quiet faithfulness is coupled with a readiness to respond to every opportunity, however small, to embody the hope of the Gospel at the heart of a community; where people, together, become places where the Kingdom happens.'

Archbishop Sarah Mullally

The new Archbishop of Canterbury's motion at last week's General Synod in London to endorse the recommendations of the Archbishops' Commission on Reimagining Care was carried by 245, with no votes against and a single abstention.

Synod members spoke during the debate about church initiatives, including Anna Chaplaincies, singing sessions for older people and clubs for those who are elderly and lonely.

Synod member David Ashton (Leeds) said:

'We visit them, we see them, we're happy to be with them; there's a link between people being at home alone and how the mind deteriorates later on.'

Archbishop Sarah had set out her priorities on the morning of the care debate when she stated that 'Service, stability and shepherding' would be the themes of her new archiepiscopate.

'With your help and with God’s grace, I pray that I am able to approach this ministry with calm, consistency and with compassion – as we seek to be what the Church has for so long been: a stable presence in an unstable world.' She continued:

'With our confidence in God, we can believe that indeed, the best is yet to come for the church that we love and nurture, and therefore for the world that the church is called to serve.'

She explained: 'My Christian vocation first led me to become a nurse – then later a priest, then a bishop, and now an archbishop. The theme that has run through of all those chapters of my life has been washing feet, and serving and caring for others.'

And she concluded her address, saying: 'As a shepherd, I will strive to be calm, consistent and compassionate to all. I commit myself to enabling the Church to be the Church. May we continue to offer ourselves in God’s service for God’s world: our hope rooted in the Gospel, and our confidence rooted in God, who holds the Church and its future in love.'

Anna Chaplaincy at work in Alton, Hampshire

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