THE Church of England appointed a man who fled the poverty and persecution of Idi Amin’s Uganda as its first black Archbishop yesterday.

Dr John Sentamu, a former High Court judge who fled Uganda and trained for the priesthood at Cambridge, will bridge the divide between the hierarchy of the liberal, Western Church and the conservative evangelical bishops of the so-called “Global South”.

His appointment is also a sign that the Church is moving on from a heritage of institutional racism, illustrated by the paucity of non-white people in senior posts.

The new Archbishop showed his gift for language and passion for justice in his first few words to the press yesterday after his appointment was announced by Downing Street to a surprised Church of England.

He urged Anglicans who are fighting each other over gays to disagree in a “Christian sort of way” and called on the Church to become once again a spiritual home for everyone.

Dr Sentamu, 56, is married with two children, and becomes second in the hierarchy to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams. He acknowledged that the Church had gone through a “trough” in its fortunes and said that it needed to regain its “vision and confidence” and be ready to take risks in order to reconnect with England. Referring to the dispute over homosexuality, he said that opposing Anglicans at present were like people shouting at each other from different banks of a river. “I do not detect that to be the mind of Jesus, having violent rows,” he said.

Bishop Sentamu gave his backing to efforts to achieve a deal on aid, trade and debt relief for Africa at next month’s G8 summit in Gleneagles, and hailed the work of Make Poverty History and the Live 8 concert in raising awareness.

But he also issued a warning to the affluent West that its material wealth could stand in the way of personal fulfilment.

For many in the West, Descartes’s “cogito ergo sum” — I think therefore I am — had been replaced by the motto “Tesco ergo sum” — I shop therefore I am, he said.

“To judge your human happiness by how big your shopping trolley is is to miss the point. Poverty is not acceptable, but to assume that material wealth automatically produces happiness . . . history and human nature tell us that this is not the case.”

When he arrived at York Minster yesterday afternoon Dr Sentamu said: “I’m sure they’re going to embrace me. We’re straight-talkers in Uganda and I’m told they’re straight-talkers here as well.”

Dr Williams was one of the first to welcome the appointment of the man who will work with him as co-chair of the Archbishop’s Council. He had already appointed him to the international tribunal that will mediate in disputes over homosexuality in the church.

Dr Williams said: “He is someone who has always combined a passion for sharing the gospel with a keen sense of the problems and challenges of our society, particularly where racism is concerned.”

The appointment was also welcomed by Dr Joel Edwards, the country’s other senior black churchman, who heads the Evangelical Alliance. Dr Edwards said: “This appointment is an inspired and creative step forward for the Church of England and it is a Christian witness to the nation. Bishop Sentamu combines energy, vision and an application of the gospel to the real needs of our community. He has been a friend and an inspiring Christian role model over many years during his ministry both in London and Birmingham.”

The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, said: “He has brought vigour and enthusiasm and imagination to his ministry in Birmingham. I am sure that he will do the same in his new responsibilities.”

That York is not Birmingham was made plain by the sea of white faces in the crowd of 120 people who greeted the new Archbishop outside York Minster’s towering west entrance.

The Rev Jonas Mdumulla, 55, arrived in Britain from Tanzania 23 years ago to become the first black clergyman in the York diocese. Today, he is one of only three black faces among the diocese’s 270 priests and talks from experience when he warns that the new Archbishop is arriving in “a white heartland”.

“When I arrived in Hull I found that some people were apprehensive about having a black priest. I remember one funeral I was supposed to take where the family that said they didn’t want their mother’s service to be taken by a black person. They said that their mother had always drawn the line at blacks.”

Mr Mdumulla said that with time, however, he found the barriers “melting away” and was confident that the new Archbishop would have a dramatic impact in helping people in the north of England to realise that “the Church is about all people, regardless of race and culture”.

“You used to send missionaries out to Africa and John is a by-product of that work, but now the Church is receiving back. It’s Britain that needs the missionary work today.”

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