A new Archbishop of Canterbury will be named soon. Robert Nowell reports on the career of the leading contender, Dr Rowan Williams of Wales
It could well be over a fortnight before the white smoke goes up from 10 Downing Street, but already this week the Times of London has confidently predicted that the man to succeed Dr George Carey as Archbishop of Canterbury will be 52-year-old Dr Rowan Williams, who since 1999 has been Archbishop of Wales and Primate of one of Britain's three Anglican Churches. According to its report, he has emerged as the Crown Appointment Commission's first choice.
He has been strongly tipped for the post ever since Dr Carey announced in January that he would be retiring at the end of October. Among those backing his candidacy has been one of the best-loved and most widely respected prelates of the Anglican Communion, Nobel Prize-winner Desmond Tutu, who was Archbishop of Cape Town from 1986 to 1996.
But to judge by what he himself has said it is not something he would look forward to. "The Archbishopric of Canterbury is an intimidating and enormous job, and it would be a very foolish man who thought he was adequate to its demands," he stated.
He went on to do his best to rule himself out as a candidate: "It would be extremely unusual for the Crown to look beyond the ranks of the English bishops, given the need to understand the workings of the Church of England, the House of Lords, and so on."
In saying this Dr Williams was disguising the fact that he has had plenty of experience of the Church of England from the inside. He may have been born and brought up in Swansea, but he studied at both Cambridge and Oxford and was a theology lecturer at Cambridge before being appointed Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Oxford in 1986, when he was only 36. It was only in 1992 that he moved back to his native Wales when he was elected Bishop of Monmouth.
His career as a theologian underlines the fact that he is one of the outstanding intellects of institutional Christianity in these islands, concerned always to understand more deeply what he believes and to help the rest of us to do the same.
He also remains refreshingly rooted in the real world. He has commended The Simpsons as "one of the most subtle pieces of propaganda around in the cause of sense, humility and virtue" and Father Ted as making one "think about the real zaniness of the church".
Few bishops could have got away with swapping places with a 12-year-old schoolgirl for a day to raise funds for the BBC's annual Children in Need appeal. But Dr Williams did last November - taking with him a note from his 13-year-old daughter, Rhiannon, asking that he might be excused netball.
However, from the official point of view all this is mere speculation. Only when the announcement is made from Downing Street will we know which name Tony Blair has forwarded to Queen Elizabeth for nomination as the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury. This announcement is expected only after the Church of England's general synod has held its summer meeting in York from July 5th to 9th, the last over which Dr Carey will preside.
Meanwhile, the report that Dr Williams is the man most likely to be named has drawn attention to the inadequacies of the system whereby the Church of England chooses its bishops - or in one sense has them chosen for it.
Until 1977 it was up to the Prime Minister to nominate bishops, after suitable consultation. They are appointed by the Crown, a consequence of Henry VIII's break with Rome and his insistence on having the final say in church affairs. But in 1977 the Crown Appointments Commission was set up, a 12-member body (13 when it comes to appointing a new Archbishop of Canterbury) consisting of representatives of the vacant diocese and of the general synod.
This forwards two names, usually in order of preference, to the Prime Minister for him or her to select one to give to the queen for actual appointment.
The convention is that the Prime Minister should take the first name on the list, but he or she can choose the second or can reject both names and ask the commission to think again - as has happened.
Ironically, before the synod will be a diocesan synod motion being moved by Dr Colin Buchanan, Bishop of Woolwich and a long-standing critic of establishment, asking for the appointment of bishops to be detached from any involvement with 10 Downing Street and the monarchy and calling for "a more participatory and open church procedure than is currently possible".
One important factor in all this is that Dr Williams is very much a Welshman and has emerged as a leading figure in Welsh society.
If he is appointed to Canterbury it would be yet another instance of Welsh talent being drained off by England to the detriment of Wales.
He would almost certainly be the first Welsh-speaking Archbishop of Canterbury - an ironic reversal, given the notorious inability of Augustine to get on with the native British bishops - but that could be small recompense.