Archbishop Peter Carnley has announced that he will retire as head of the Anglican Church of Australia from February next year. He will leave his post as Archbishop of Perth and Primate of the Anglican Church on May 25, 2005. Accrued long service leave means he will finish his duties on or around February 6.
Dr Carnley will continue in his recent appointment as Anglican co-chair of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC), giving him a continued involvement in worldwide Anglican affairs.
Dr Carnley has served as Archbishop of Perth since 1981, and became Primate of the national church in 2000. His last full year will include the Church’s General Synod, to be held in Fremantle, WA in October. The Primate serves as chairman of General Synod.
General Synod will choose a board of electors, comprising the 23 diocesan bishops, plus 12 clergy and 12 lay people. The board will then elect the next Primate, at a time still to be determined.
In a letter to clergy of the Diocese of Perth and all Australian bishops, Dr Carnley said ‘an enormous number of quite significant things’ had happened during his time in episcopal ministry. “Naturally, there have been some ups and downs, but generally speaking the downs have been few, and overshadowed by far by the positively life-giving and good things that we have all experienced,” he wrote.
Dr Carnley has been involved in a number of controversies in the national church. In 1992, he ordained a number of women to the priesthood in the Diocese of Perth before General Synod had passed a Canon allowing the measure. In 2000, he wrote a controversial article in The Bulletin that frustrated many evangelicals since it appeared to equivocate over Jesus’ bodily resurrection.