COMING SOON: Bishop of Durham Justin Welby expected to be named tomorrow as the next Archbishop of Canterbury

The Rt. Rev'd Justin Welby

Worldwide attention is now focused on an expected announcement naming the new Archbishop of Canterbury tomorrow at an 11:00 a.m. (6:00 a.m. EST) press conference in London. It is now widely assumed that the next Archbishop of Canterbury will be the Bishop of Durham, the Rt. Rev'd Justin Welby.

The London Telegraph reports that the anticipated appointment "marks a meteoric rise for the former oil executive who has been a bishop for only a year, but insiders described Welby as 'the outstanding candidate.'"

John Bingham, and Jonathan Wynne-Jones of the Telegraph point to evidence that the new Archbishop of Canterbury is Bishop Welby after the bishop "pulled out at short notice from a planned appearance on the BBC Radio 4 discussion programme Any Questions due to take place in County Durham on Friday.

"He also cut short a retreat with diocesan staff and returned to the capital where it is understood his wife is travelling down to join him tomorrow..Earlier this week bookmakers stopped taking money on Bishop Welby after a flurry of bets on him being chosen," the Telegraph reports.

George Conger at AnglicanInk explains the process:

The Archbishop of Canterbury is appointed by the Queen. The process for selecting an archbishop has two phases: political and ecclesiastical. The political phase begins with the creation of a 16 member Crown Nominations Commission whose members are drawn from the General Synod of the Church of England, the Diocese of Canterbury and one representative from the wider Anglican Communion. 

The committee is tasked with selecting two names to present to the Prime Minister. A nominee must secure the support of two-thirds, or at least 11 members of the committee. After two names are selected the committee votes, by simple majority, to rank the candidates. 

Traditionally the prime minister then chooses from amongst the candidates, but in 2007 Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced he would accept the choice ranked first by the committee – a practice his successor David Cameron has followed.
The recommendation is then passed to the Queen, who then passes the recommendation on to the dean and canons of Canterbury Cathedral who then “elect” the new archbishop.

The BBC has a profile on Bishop Welby here.

Praying today!  If this is all true - and it sure looks like it is - this is really good news.