"So the Holy Spirit is at work in the Church of England after all. No other conclusion can be drawn from the inspired appointment of Dr John Sentamu to be Archbishop of York.

"The last few years have been witness to an inexorable decline in both the strength and reputation of the Anglican church in the West, a decline hastened by shameful squabbles over sexuality. It has seemed that nothing could lift the church out of the quagmire of internal dispute.

"But through this one appointment, the Church already has a whole new feel. A new direction seems possible, and a recovered sense of mission.

"As Sentamu himself noted earlier today, it was because of the courage of missionaries who risked their lives to take the Gospel to his native country of Uganda that he was in a position to become Archbishop of York. And it does seem in today's church to be in the people and churches of Africa and other developing countries that the Gospel has its most vibrant expressions.

"Although the temptation must have been strong for someone who has an international vision of justice, he did not at his press conference earlier today even condemn the Church's disputes over homosexuality. Instead he likened them to family squabbles of the kind that he engaged in as one of 13 children. Just because family members fight, they do not have to fall apart. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has already appointed him to the international panel of reference set up to mediate in the disputes over gays.

"But his whole record shows a far broader outlook than represented by the church politics of today. As a judge in Uganda, he survived persecution under the regime of Idi Amin after refusing to compromise truth for political expediency.

"Forced to flee to Britain, he survived racism and went on to make a real difference to society by exposing institutional racism in the police as an adviser to the Stephen Lawrence enquiry. Although black, his was never a tokenistic appointment. If there is a scandal, it is that he was not promoted sooner to high office, and that none of the other able clergy of Afro-Caribbean origin in this country have followed him onto the bench.

"The truth of his position is represented in the brightly painted cross he wears around his neck, inscribed with words of the late Archbishop Oscar Romero, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of San Salvador shot while saying Mass: "Peace will flower when love and justice pervade our environment." With a strong Christ-centred evangelical faith, and endorsing a social doctrine similar to the ideals of liberation theology embraced by the late Romero, his presence at such a senior level in the hierarchy will help appease the African bishops concerned over the liberal lassitude of the Western church.

"And it is a credit to Tony Blair that even though Dr Sentamu was a strong critic of the war in Iraq, believing the moral case had still to be made, he was still his strongly preferred choice. In episcopal appointments in the established Church, the Prime Minister has the ultimate say in the two names submitted to Downing Street by the Church of England's Crown Nominations Commission.

"It is in the new Archbishop's courage in speaking out and care in choosing the issues in which he involves himself that this appointment will give the Church a new and more credible standing, both nationally and on the international stage. The only reason he was not wearing his Make Poverty History wristband today was because, in the sudden dash to London to meet the press, he forgot to put it on. (The timing of the Downing Street announcement today was last-minute and surprised him as well as senior church officials.)

"The public will see once more that the Church has a voice and vision on issues beyond its own internal affairs, and the serious damage to its credibility as a national institution will begin to be reversed.

"And by no means least, in the York diocese itself, he will meet their needs, set out in their diocesan statement to those making the appointment, for someone who is collaborative, a good communicator, with a good understanding of national and international culture and with a focus on mission.

"This morning he quoted St John of the Cross: "Mission is putting love where love is not." Love has felt substantially lacking in the embattled Church of England for some time. This could be the man to put it back, and thereby help it live again."

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