Your Graces, your Eminences, Lord HailshamLord Chancellor, leaders of other Churches, my Lord Bishops, my Lords, ladies and gentlemen.
It is an honour and a delight, Donald CogganArchbishop, to entertain you and Mrs Coggan here tonight. We warmly welcome you both.
We welcome, too, your sister and Mrs Coggan's brother, and a special word of welcome, too, for Mr and Mrs Masterman, your close friends for many years and he was, I believe, your best man at your wedding.
And it is a real joy to welcome all our other guests here tonight—the Apostolic Delegate, the Immanuel JakobivitsChief Rabbi, distinguished leaders of other Christian Churches (I am sorry that Cardinal Hume cannot be with us as he had to be in Rome), friends from the Church of England, and senior members of your staff.
A very warm welcome to you all. [end p1]
I do not much care for farewell tributes, and am happy that these few words are not really such a thing, as you will be with us as our Archbishop until the Feast Day of St Paul next January. But it is I think, a good moment to say to you, in this company of friends, what a great and good Archbishop of Canterbury you have been. You accepted this work at a time in your ministry when many of us would be thinking of slowing down a bit, and have carried the very heavy burden of your office with unfailing courage, energy and conviction. In all that you have said and done you have upheld what is good and right and, in a quite remarkable way, you have never failed in your courtesy and care towards all with whom you have had to deal.
And in the modern world what a job yours is.
Thinking of the pressures under which you work, it is rather quaint to go back 150 years, when [end p2]
“In Archbishop Howley's days the General Postman, dressed in bright scarlet, brought the country letters every morning, and came again at five o'clock in the evening to collect the letters. He went to the front door, ringing in his hands a heavy bell to give notice of his coming. He had a guinea a quarter from the Palace. The general-post letters in the morning for the Archbishop and Mrs Howley were put into a china bowl in the hall.
There were scarcely enough to cover the bottom of it. When the Archbishop was at Addington, and I had to forward the letters there, I could put as a rule all the letters of the day, servants' included, in a medium sized envelope.”
I doubt if you, or your staff, would recognise that kind of existence! [end p3]
Move on 50 years, and we find Queen Victoria, hoping that the then Bishop of Winchester, a rather elderly man, might succeed Archbishop Tait at Canterbury in 1882—saying that his age would not matter, as Canterbury was less exhausting than Winchester. I expect Queen Victoria was wrong then, and she would certainly be wrong now!
As Archbishop, you have a diocese, you lead the Church of England and preside over its Synod, you share the spiritual leadership of our country with your friends in other Churches and creeds, and you are the focus of unity for the world-wide Anglican Communion. On that last point, how justly you—and Mrs Coggan—have been praised for the outstanding success of last year's Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Bishops at Canterbury. [end p4]
You are a national figure; everybody seems to want to know what the Archbishop of Canterbury thinks about any even vaguely religious subject you care to name, and about many others too. Compared with your predecessors in quieter times you have had to carry out your work under the glare of publicity; the effect of radio and television makes you known to ordinary people in a way which was quite impossible before the coming of these alarming innovations. [end p5]
You have been Archbishop, first at York and then at Canterbury, for nearly 20 years. This has been at a time when the role of all the Churches in our society has been undergoing rapid change. It has been a time of much confusion in faith, in ethics, in our relationships one with another, in our sense of community, our sense of a proper patriotism. You have been Archbishop in a time when, more than at any other time in our history, there has been challenge—and at the highest intellectual level—to fundamental values. There have been false prophets, ready to ridicule and vilify those who believed in things which are ‘true, honest, just, pure, lovely and of good report.’ You, as Archbishop, have never failed to uphold those things, to point people to those values, to help them to hear—to borrow a phrase from your brother Archbishop—‘the sound of the trumpet in the morning’;. [end p6]
In times like these a Christian leader has to discern the right balance between proclaiming the unchanging personal faith, and bringing a Christian judgement to bear on our society and the great issues of our time. A difficult balance to strike—but I don't think you have ever got it wrong. [Speaking text originally said: “A difficult balance to strike - and I believe that recently some Christian leaders and thinkers have been getting it wrong - but this has not been true of you”. MT struck this phrase out and substituted the words immediately above.] How good it has been for all of us to see, in you, a person in authority who is so palpably under authority, the authority of the Master you serve.
Throughout your ministry you and Mrs Coggan have formed a wonderful partnership, supporting each other in every way, and I know how true this has been of your time at Canterbury. Like you, your wife is a distinguished author in her own right; perhaps you sometimes say to her, as Disraeli said to Queen Victoria, “we authors, ma'am” . All who know you both, know the support you have been to each other. [end p7]
Archbishop, you have been tireless in seeking to harness the Church's wisdom and witness for good in our national life. You have been tireless in the many journeys you have undertaken abroad, and in your work for closer friendship and understanding with other Christian Churches and men of good will. When next January comes, I assure you that you will lay down your great office having gained the respect and gratitude of us all—and our affection.
We honour you—the Church's and our country's most faithful servant.