NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) — After renewing her commitment to a controversial £100 million Church of England fund apologizing for the church’s historical ties to the slave trade, Archbishop Sarah Mullally ended her 10-day Africa tour Tuesday (Aug. 4) calling for peace and healing.
“Our world cries out for healing. Millions of people live in fear. Millions are displaced. Hundreds of children do not have access to school,” said Mullally in a sermon on Aug. 4 from the Cameroonian capital of Yaounde. “I heard you speak of all these things, and I know the people of Cameroon have suffered far too long.”
The trip marked Mullally’s first visit to Africa since her March 25 installation, when she became the first woman to serve as archbishop of Canterbury. She is also the first in her role to visit Cameroon.
Mullally visited Ghana from July 26-31 and Cameroon from July 31-Aug. 4. While Ghana is regarded as one of West Africa’s more stable democracies, Cameroon is grappling with armed conflict between government forces and militant separatists identifying with the historically sidelined Anglophone community.
The archbishop praised the peace-building partnerships between the Anglican Church, the Catholic Church and other denominations and faiths in Cameroon and emphasized that peace required genuine and inclusive dialogue with everyone at the table.
“That requires courage, it requires strength, and it requires commitment at every level of society, but particularly those in authority,” said the archbishop.
The peace message capped a trip that also focused on the Church of England’s efforts to address its historic links to the transatlantic slave trade. During the Ghana leg of her visit, Mullally defended the church’s £100 million reparations fund while visiting one of West Africa’s most significant slave forts, the Cape Coast Castle that came under British control in the 1660s.
“Part of the Christian belief in repentance is about action, so we are putting in place action to support those communities that feel the legacy of the slave trade,” Mullally said from the slave fort on July 30, according to the BBC.
The church’s reparation fund, first announced in January 2023, followed an independent audit revealing that an 18th-century church endowment called Queen Anne’s Bounty had heavily invested and profited in a slave-trading company. The church’s missionaries also ran slave plantations in the Caribbean to fund their work; some clergy owned slaves; and the church pocketed large donations from slave traders.
The archbishop toured the dungeons where enslaved Africans were kept and went through “the door of no return” traders forced the slaves through before shipping them to the Caribbean, Brazil and North America. Atop the dungeons sits an Anglican chapel.
Mullally said that, in seeing the horrific conditions thousands of people were kept in, it was impossible not to feel the weight of the immense evil that drove the transatlantic slave trade.
“I pray not only in lament for the Church’s involvement in the slave trade, but also for hope — hope that the God of healing can bring justice and reconciliation to all who are still impacted by its legacy,” she said after visiting the castle.
The archbishop also preached at an all-women-led clergy service in Accra on July 26, met Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama on July 27 and visited the king of the Ashanti, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, on July 29.
The fund is meant to be distributed through 2032 for investment, research and aid programs supporting communities affected by the slave trade. But the church has not yet made details clear about who will receive what funds or how.
Retired Anglican Bishop Julius Kalu of Mombasa questioned how beneficiaries of the fund would be found, since people impacted by the slave trade died a long time ago.
“That is my concern. Who is going to benefit and how are they going to be identified?” he said.
Mullally’s recommitment to the fund has also ignited sharp criticisms in her home country, where some opponents have disputed the level of the church’s complicity, questioned ideological motivations behind the decision and raised legal concerns, arguing the fund is taking away money from parish churches.
But in Africa, many welcome the effort and hope it will encourage other churches to work toward reparations for slavery and colonization.
“This is a welcome and necessary acknowledgement, but history teaches us that recognition alone is not justice,” said Jackie Makena, a young theologian from the Methodist Church in Kenya. “Genuine repentance requires repair.”
Makena said the legacies of slavery and colonialism were inseparable and were not confined to history.
“They persist in structural injustices like economic disparities and unequal global power relations that continue to shape inequality today,” she said, adding that reparation was not about assigning perpetual guilt. “It is about taking shared responsibility for healing the enduring consequences of historical injustice.”
Kalu also described the fund as a good effort. “It is also a way of saying: ‘Yes, we did it, accepting we did it, but we apologize for this and (accept) this was wrong,’” he said. “I saw the damage that the slave trade did in that region, and the scars are still there and can still be seen very clearly in Ghana, more than anywhere else.”
The African Union and other continental organizations have pushed for moral accountability, investment and return of stolen artifacts. The movement gained a boost in March, when the United Nations declared the transatlantic slave trade “the gravest crime against humanity.”
According to Adebayo Anthony Kehinde, an evangelist in the Nigeria African Church, ministry leaders remained largely unconvinced that the £100 million commitment was sufficient.
“While many of them welcome and acknowledge the apology, they instead consider the amount grossly inadequate, considering the quantum of the Church of England’s involvement in transatlantic slavery,” Kehinde said.
The Church of England’s independent oversight group that conducted the audit had recommended £1 billion or more for reparations to reflect the moral gravity of slavery and the wealth of the church.
Kehinde also urged European churches to reassess statues and plaques that commemorate individuals who gained substantial wealth from slavery.
“They should consider providing historical context or, when suitable, relocating or renaming these tributes to demonstrate their dedication to reparative justice,” he said.
