“FULL OPPORTUNITY HAVING BEEN GIVEN”: THE SAFEGUARDING OBJECTION THE SYSTEM COULD NOT HEAR
Introduction: a ritual declaration and a contested reality
At the Confirmation of Election of Dame Sarah Mullally as Archbishop of Canterbury, the presiding official declared that “no person has appeared in opposition to the confirmation” and that “full opportunity [had] been given for opposers to appear.”¹ That declaration has since been cited as proof that no lawful objection existed. Yet the subsequent public account of Paul Williamson, the priest removed from the service, complicates that claim and exposes a deeper structural problem: the appearance of due process without a publicly accessible path to substantive accountability.
What Williamson says he did—and when
Williamson states that he spoke precisely at the point in the service where the absence of objections was being asserted. “We got to the stage in the service where there was printed evidence about objections and it stated that there were no objections,” he explains. “At the point where they said in writing and read it out verbally that there were no objections, I stood up and very clearly said with my rather loud voice, I object.”²
He further insists that his intervention was framed in explicitly legal terms: “I said it was a safeguarding failure, a suicide of the Reverend Alan Griffin, and it was an impediment—which is a very important legal term—for her progress to be Archbishop of Canterbury.”³ Williamson repeatedly emphasises that he was not making a general protest but invoking a recognised juridical category: “By common law of this country and by precedent an impediment has to be dealt with before the process proceeds.”⁴
The substance of the safeguarding claim
Williamson roots his objection in the death of the Revd Alan Griffin, asserting that failures in safeguarding oversight were materially relevant to episcopal fitness for office. “The Reverend Alan Griffin committed suicide because of the safeguarding failures of Sarah Mullally,” he claims.⁵ He refers to a Prevention of Future Deaths report issued by a coroner to the Archbishop of Canterbury following the inquest, requiring action in response to the handling of the case.⁶
Williamson characterises his intervention as an appeal for accountability rather than disruption: “I had no intention of causing an ugly scene in the house of God. But I felt it right to stand up for justice and for safeguarding.”⁷ Media reporting at the time confirms that the words shouted during the ceremony were not fully audible in the cathedral but that Williamson subsequently clarified his grounds in broadcast interviews.⁸
“You can’t object after the King has signed”: the undisclosed deadline
The most consequential element of Williamson’s account concerns timing. He states that he was later told his objection was “out of time” because the King had already signed the relevant instruments in December. “It transpires that you can’t object to a bishop after the King has signed the pieces of paper. This apparently happened in December. Nobody was told,” he says.⁹
According to Williamson, notices were placed only on the doors of St Paul’s Cathedral and Lambeth Palace after the fact. “How would anybody anywhere know or see those two notices that were not in the public realm, or know that they had to object before the King signed?” he asks.¹⁰ He contrasts this with ordinary ecclesiastical and common-law expectations, noting that traditionally objections may be raised at the time of a wedding or ordination when impediments are declared.¹¹
Prior notification to the Vicar-General
Williamson further states that he attempted to engage the system in advance. He recounts writing to the Vicar-General on 3 January, followed by multiple phone calls and emails, before being told he was “out of time.”¹² He also describes a meeting shortly before the ceremony at which he presented “a pack of 32 documents” and was listened to “for an hour plus,” only to receive a subsequent written response stating that his objections were not valid under historic statutes and that the time for objection had passed.¹³
On Williamson’s account, therefore, the objection was not spontaneous or uninformed. It was prepared, notified, and raised at the point in the service where objections were being formally disclaimed—yet still deemed incapable of interrupting the process.
The constitutional fault line
Officials have said that any effective objection had to be raised before the Crown’s involvement was complete—before the issuance of the congé d’élire and Letters Missive.¹⁴ Constitutionally, that is accurate. Once those instruments are issued, the cathedral chapter is legally bound to elect the named candidate, and the Confirmation of Election becomes a confirmatory court concerned only with legal regularity.¹⁵
What is absent, however, is any public notice, statutory deadline, or recognised mechanism by which clergy or laity are informed that objections of substance must be lodged before royal assent, or how such objections might be received with juridical effect. The only moment at which the law publicly invites objections is the Confirmation of Election itself—by which stage substantive concerns, including safeguarding and suitability, are already foreclosed.¹⁶
Conclusion: an objection heard and nullified
On Williamson’s own account, he did what the liturgy appeared to invite: he objected, clearly and audibly, invoking an alleged impediment grounded in safeguarding, at the very moment when the absence of objections was being proclaimed. The system’s response was not to adjudicate the substance of the claim but to retreat behind an undisclosed earlier deadline and a narrow jurisdictional wall.
This episode reveals more than a clash between an individual priest and ecclesiastical authority. It exposes a structural incoherence within the Church of England itself: safeguarding is proclaimed as paramount, yet structurally incapable of interrupting an appointment once the Crown has acted—while the public is never clearly told when, how, or where such objections could have been raised with effect.
The declaration that “full opportunity” was given may be formally correct. Substantively, the opportunity was never one that the public could meaningfully use.
¹ Reuters, First woman leader of the Church of England confirmed in ancient ceremony, 28 January 2026.
² Dan Wootton, Outspoken interview with Revd Paul Williamson, transcript supplied by the author.
³ Ibid.
⁴ Ibid.
⁵ Ibid.
⁶ Religion Media Centre, Religion News Briefing, 29 January 2026.
⁷ Dan Wootton, Outspoken interview with Revd Paul Williamson, transcript supplied by the author.
⁸ Religion Media Centre, Religion News Briefing, 29 January 2026.
⁹ Dan Wootton, Outspoken interview with Revd Paul Williamson, transcript supplied by the author.
¹⁰ Ibid.
¹¹ Ibid.
¹² Ibid.
¹³ Ibid.
¹⁴ House of Commons Library, How is a new Archbishop of Canterbury chosen?, updated briefing.
¹⁵ Ibid.; see also standard descriptions of the Confirmation of Election as an ecclesiastical court.
¹⁶ Ibid.
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