Over the past few weeks, The Telegraph has been given unprecedented access to the Archbishop after his first year in office. In the interview, he speaks in detail about the dilemma he is facing over gay marriage — and the influence of recent visits he has made to Africa over the issue.
"We are struggling with the reality that there are different groups around the place that the Church can do — or has done — great harm to," the Archbishop says. "You look at some of the gay, lesbian, LGBT groups in this country and around the world — Africa included, actually — and their experience of abuse, hatred, all kinds of things." But he says: "We must both respond to what we've done in the past and listen to those voices extremely carefully. Listen with love and compassion and sorrow. And do what is possible to be done, which is not always a huge amount."
The Archbishop adds: "At the same time there are other groups in many parts of the world who are the victims of oppression and poverty, who we also have to listen to, and who find that issue an almost impossible one to deal with.
"How do you hold those two things [in balance] and do what is right and just by all? And not only by one group that you prefer and that is easier to deal with? That's not acceptable." In the interview, the Archbishop speaks of his pain at travelling to South Sudan in the aftermath of a massacre of dozens of Christians. He speaks of crying with his wife while watching a mass burial in Bor. On Thursday, the town was the scene of another atrocity when at least 58 people were killed in an attack on a UN base.
However, even in the midst of the horrific situation witnessed by the Archbishop, the local religious leaders asked about homosexuality – making clear that if blessings of gay marriage were allowed to proceed then they would not accept his help in future.
"I do believe passionately that unity is something we have to maintain," the Archbishop said privately soon afterwards. "I may be wrong, but I also believe that to take a step that means that people who desperately need our help — and who we can help — can't take it, feel in their own culture that it is impossible to be helped by us, is something that we can't easily do."
In previous public statements, he appeared to indicate that if the Church did bless gay marriages this could lead to Christians being targeted in Africa.
However, the Archbishop now says that his previous position was misinterpreted, and denies that he is effectively being blackmailed. "What I said is that I have been in places where that has been the reason given for attacking people," he says. "Now, as I said then — and this is where there was misinterpretation — that doesn't mean that you don't do certain things. That would just be giving in to that kind of terror.
"It would be moral blackmail. You can't say, 'We're not going to do X, which we think is right, because it will cause trouble'. That's ridiculous."