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Archbishop of Canterbury resigns to take position at Magdalene College

Alex Myers Contributor
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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, said Friday that he will resign at the end of December to take a position at Magdalene College, Cambridge, the Telegraph reports.

Williams’ ten-year reign as archbishop was filled with disagreements over gay clergy and women bishops that left him in a struggle to protect the church from unravelling.

However, he denied that those rows were the reasons for his resignation. Williams said “crisis management” wasn’t his favorite part of the job, but conflicts over homosexuality didn’t “overshadow everything.”

He continued, “It has certainly been a major nuisance. But in every job that you are in there are controversies and conflicts and this one isn’t going to go away in a hurry. I can’t say that it is a great sense of ‘free at last.'”

Williams did say that it was a pleasure being archbishop and that the decision didn’t come lightly. With what he called “watersheds” being plentiful, he said it was a reasonable time to move on.

Williams puts his faith in God to decide who his successor will be, but said he hopes that individual will possess “the constitution of an ox and the skin of a rhinoceros.”

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