A riveting apology for the Church of England’s participation in slavery came on Sunday from the Right Honourable Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury who was guest preacher at the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the Anglican Diocese of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.

The celebratory church service was held at the National Arena in St Andrew and was attended by hundreds of people, including dignitaries and high-ranking members of the church.

It was Welby’s opinion, that “the church sinned and consumed the sheep”.

“I cannot speak for the Government of the United Kingdom but I can speak from my own heart and represent what we say now in England. We are deeply, deeply, deeply sorry. We sinned against your ancestors. I would give anything that that can be reversed, but it cannot,” Welby said, pointing out that the church began its transformation from loving power to begin loving people, in the 19th century.

“The good shepherd of Psalm 23 is at work among us. Conversion changes the whole sense of who we are. It gives us a new identity. So, what makes for a better future? The knowledge of when our predecessors terribly failed cannot be ignored. We are all forgiven by God for the things we confess because Jesus bore the sins on himself, being God Himself. We are now responsible to God to do right, and to repent and say sorry. That must involve reversing direction and going in a different way. Our Saviour and His ever-present love led the church into seeking to do right. Too late, but better late than never.”

Welby told the congregants that it was his privilege to be invited to address them, and explained that he saw the invitation as an act of grace and forgiveness on their part.

He said he knows that parts of the Church of England, and even one of the archbishops in the 18th century, owned slaves.

“The shepherd, as Ezekiel said, consumed the flock. It is no wonder the Church of England has suffered judgement, for what worse thing could be done? Even for those in the church who did not actively participate in chattel enslavement, the silence of the church was collusion, an agreement with slavery,” he said, adding that there were bishops who truly profited from slavery.

“Today we know that we were wrong. It was a vile and disgusting sin. There remains in many hearts resistance to the concept of enslavement as being our sin and the celebration of ending the idea that a human being can ever be a possession. Yesterday the diocese was savaged by its shepherds. Today it is a diocese that suffers the consequence of its past when it was the church of slave owners,” Welby said to an attentive congregation, in hoping his apology would be accepted.

The combined Anglican church choir in action at the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the Anglican Diocese of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands at the National Arena in St Andrew on Sunday. (Photo: Joseph Wellington)