Canterbury Tattle-Tales

England hardly qualifies as a churchgoing nation. More than 80% of its citizens never attend a religious service other than the odd wedding or funeral, according to London's Christian Research organization.

Meanwhile the established, or state, Church of England, which counts half the population as baptized members, attracts only about 3% to regular weekly or monthly services. Empty churches, dwindling attendance: it looks like a church in serious decline. So the media interest over the early retirement of Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, 66, and the intense speculation about his successor surprised many churchmen. Says former Archdeacon of York George Austin: "I had just written an article saying there was now no interest left in the church at all. I had to change it."

Of course, races are intriguing whether they are run by horses, politicians or clergy, and the Archbishop of Canterbury is after all the nation's spiritual leader, the presider over great state celebrations. He ranks second to the royal family in leaving such occasions — he succeeds the sovereign, but precedes the Prime Minister. Moreover, he not only heads the Church of England, but also leads the worldwide Anglican Communion of some 70 million Anglicans and Episcopalians in 164 countries.

His very status in British society normally invites attention, but that hardly explains the smears and gossip that surfaced as soon as Carey's possible successors were named. It seemed that church factions had already started jostling to get their man in the job, in a scenario right out of the Barsetshire novels of Anthony Trollope, who vividly chronicled the intrigues of 19th century cathedral politics.

Bearing the brunt of the nasty, possibly racist whispers was the 52-year-old Pakistani-born Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali, the son of a Muslim convert to Christianity and a man praised for his intellect. The slurs alleged he had bought his first bishopric, lied about his age, misrepresented his academic qualifications and — horrors — was even once involved with the Catholic Church. None turned out to be true except the last charge. Nazir-Ali has admitted to being a practicing Catholic while at St. Paul's School and during a year at St. Patrick's College in Karachi before he became an Anglican at age 20. Not that the Papist allegations bothered too many. Times have changed since Henry VIII severed ties with Rome in 1534. The Queen this month overturned five centuries of history by inviting Britain's Catholic leader, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, to preach at Sandringham's parish church on the royal estate, and Prime Minister Tony Blair often accompanies his Catholic wife Cherie to Mass.

But times haven't changed that much. Another one of the criticisms of Nazir-Ali was that he was too willing to discuss his candidacy during a bbc interview. Still, the race has many months to run before Carey leaves the job in October. And appointing Nazir-Ali as the 104th Primate of All England might be tempting as an inclusive gesture to the Anglican Communion — and, since he is an Islam expert, a pragmatic one. "This may indeed influence the choice," says Austin. "But the bishop is worthy of the job anyway." Nevertheless, by the end of week, Nazir-Ali had dropped from first to third favorite, with 4-1 odds, according to bookmakers William Hill.

The current front-runner is the Archbishop of Wales, Rowan Williams, who also topped a newspaper poll of the General Synod, the Church of England's ruling body. A poet and respected theologian, he is too leftist for some and might be overtaken by James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool, said to be Blair's favored candidate. Jones is praised for his communication skills, but critics whisper he might be "too ambitious."

Among the most contentious issues in the selection process are likely to be the treatment of homosexual priests (under Carey, the Church has taken the line that practicing homosexuals should not be ordained) and women priests (the first was ordained in 1994). Since then hundreds of priests have resigned over the matter of women clergy or have actively resisted accepting them in their parishes. Some dissenters have even defected to Catholicism. Though there are now some 2,500 women serving the Church of England as priests, there is no female bishop and none in sight.

Archbishop Williams and Bishops Jones and Nazir-Ali support female priests, but the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, has been lukewarm to cold on the issue, and this could affect his chances for the top job. On the other hand, it may not hurt that Chartres, a cerebral member of the Church of England's An-glo-Catholic wing, is highly regarded by Prince Charles, who likes his traditionalist approach and asked Chartres — not Carey — to confirm Prince William. Also with a friend in the top job, Charles might find it easier eventually to marry Camilla Parker Bowles. Divorced couples are currently remarried in the church only at the discretion of the priest — another thorny issue waiting to ambush the Canterbury incumbent. Meanwhile, Chartres may take hope from the pattern of recent decades: the Canterbury job has alternated between the denomination's high church "smells and bells" wing and the sometimes — but not always — "happy clappy" evangelical faction, to which Carey and Nazir-Ali belong.

In the end it will not be the church that makes the final choice but Blair. The Prime Minister also picks the chairman of the 16-member Crown Appointments Committee, in which elected clergy and laity whittle down a dozen or more possibilities to just two names — all in great secrecy. Blair could reject both, though this would be unusual, before recommending one to the Queen, who then appoints his choice. The process is an expression of the strange union between church and state that Britain inherited from Henry VIII. There have long been calls for disestablishment of the church — its separation from the state. Carey, like his predecessors, has opposed them.

Whoever gets the job knows he will have a hard task in keeping the unwieldy Anglican Communion afloat and the domestic church from falling further into irrelevance. Carey is revered in the Third World, where there are genuine areas of Anglican growth. But it's at home, with a church that Carey once likened to an "elderly lady, muttering ancient platitudes through toothless gums," that the problems may seem darkest. There are pockets of hope. Ordinations have risen by 50% in the last five years — with the help of women — black churches are vibrant, and evangelical crusades like the Alpha movement have attracted new churchgoers. Though church leaders like to note that more people go to services at weekends than football matches, Sunday congregations declined during Carey's 11-year tenure to under 1 million from more than 1.26 million in 1989.

"It would be wrong to say there was nothing good in the Church of England," says Conservative M.P. Ann Widdecombe, a defector to the Catholics. "But it is in a mess, it needs extremely strong leadership . . . someone who will not bow to every bit of pressure . . . with a very clear view of what he believes the church needs." In other words, a miracle worker.