Soundbites, sense and a short sermon from the new man at Canterbury

A qualified first aider was on stand-by, an official from Lambeth Palace announced yesterday, just before the arrival of the man who will be the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury. Had anybody other than the Archbishop of Wales, the Most Rev Rowan Williams, then walked through the door there might have been the need for some treatment for shock. In the event, however, the medic's services were not required.

As had been widely anticipated, Dr Williams was announced yesterday as the man who will lead the Church of England and 70 million members of the worldwide Anglican Communion when Dr George Carey retires in October.

Clad in low-church black rather than episcopal purple, the 52-year-old bearded, beetle-browed Welsh primate entered the room with a twinkle in his eye ­ and gave a magisterial demonstration of why he had been chosen by a system of church insiders and prime ministerial placemen for the job. He was by turns witty, warm, self-effacing, clever, visionary, comfortable and challenging. The man who was once the youngest professor in Oxford ­ where at 36 he held a chair in divinity ­ had even developed a decidedly unacademic skill: mastery of the soundbite.

The priorities disclosed in his opening remarks were revealing. He was humorous, talking about the curious experience of having "your future, personality, childhood influences and facial hair solemnly examined in the media, and opinions you didn't know you held expounded on your behalf". He was modest, speaking of coming to terms with an enormous trust placed in his hands and "with the inevitable sense of inadequacy that goes with that".

And before all else he spoke of his responsibilities as a priest charged with the duty of offering "whatever I can discern of God's perspective on the world around ­ something which involves both challenge and comfort". Even as the Archbishop of Canterbury, he said, he needed "to be grounded in the hopes and concerns of ordinary local Christian communities".

Intriguingly, after that he turned not to the needs of the Church of England or the Anglican Communion but of a secular society "which, while it may show a good deal of nostalgia, fascination and even hunger for the spiritual, is generally sceptical of Christianity and the church".

His mission as archbishop to the agnostics was later amplified when he spoke of how he had greatly valued "conversations over the years with those rather on the edges of the church, people in the worlds of the arts, medicine, psychology, who are eager to explore what Christian faith means. There can be many gifts and many surprises in such meetings, and I hope they will continue."

Only then did he address the needs of an institutional church "that currently faces its share of challenges".

In response to a question about the noisy conservative opponents who have predicted that his appointment will split the church (over his refusal to condemn homosexual Christians), he stressed the "huge amount" he had "in common with evangelical friends and colleagues" and said "the only way of challenging deeply entrenched prejudices is through courage and conversation".

What he was offering was frank but gentle dialogue. "I don't come to this task with a fixed programme or agenda," he said. As a theologian he had developed views on all sorts of issues and had had to engage with colleagues and students who held very varied opinions.

But in an olive branch to his opponents he added: "No pastor or bishop holds a position in which their first task is to fight for the victory of their personal judgements as if those were final or infallible.

"There is a danger," he added, "in treating the Archbishop of Canterbury as if he is a sort of pope." He showed evidence of this conciliatory approach later. Questioned on his previous unilateralist opposition to nuclear arms ­ he was a member of CND ­ he said: "I don't regret that." But added: "There are other ways of making your views known depending on where you are in the system or on the intellectual map of the country."

Then asked about an attack on the marketing methods of the Disney Corporation ­ which he said corrupted something fundamental to the freedom needed in childhood ­ he replied: "I didn't realise a book I wrote two years ago was being recycled." The Times newspaper had published extracts yesterday, giving the impression the work was new.

What he appeared to be signalling here was a distinction between his private views ­ which he did not renounce ­ and the style that he would adopt at Canterbury.

Yet if there is to be dialogue there will clearly not be compromise. Asked about the possibility that the Bush and Blair administrations might bomb Iraq, he said: "I would only support military action which the United Nations had cleared as far as Iraq is concerned." He added: "What I want to do is try and contribute to discussion before decisions are made;" and went on: "Any Christian pastor or priest is always going to be asking awkward questions in certain circumstances."

His job, he said, would be to help the faithful, in dialogue with what he called "our varied society", to develop a new sense of confidence. Not "an unhelpful confidence that simply suggests the church has all the answers and that refuses to pay real attention to other faiths and other convictions" but a confidence in the Christian creed and vision and what he called "a patient willingness to learn from others in the ordinary encounters of life together". Only that could "save us from being led by fashion, by the issues of the day: the truth for and about human beings is not something that can be decided simply by the majority vote of our culture ­ whether on war or sex or economics or ecology". And only then could Christianity in this country "again capture the imagination of our culture".

He concluded his prepared remarks with a lengthy passage in rapid-fire Welsh which lamented the leaving of his homeland. It was a characteristic gesture which showed that his current concern was for those who will remain his flock until he is translated to Canterbury in October. It was a measure of the high priority he places on pastoral care.

There were those who tried to use this to draw him into controversy over whether the links between the state and the church should be cut or attenuated ­ as they were more than 80 years ago with the church in Wales. Earlier, he had made a passing reference to the new Welsh National Assembly. The way the church's relations with it had developed, he said, had taught him "a great deal about how the church engages with and serves the life of a whole national community".

But further than that he would not go. Did it serve as a model for the future of the Church of England? "I don't think there are any blueprints," he said. It was a judgement he seemed to feel applied to his new job as a whole.

Did he have doubts about agreeing to take on the post? "You'd be a maniac not to have doubts about accepting a job of this kind," he replied with disarming frankness. "It carries such huge expectations. You live through other people's fantasies." Keeping some clarity and simplicity in that would not be easy.

Which is why, he said in conclusion, "in the months ahead, I want to try and do more listening than talking, as I have much to learn, and I hope you will bear with me in that process".