East End archbishop led by example

Beer-drinking soccer fan Carey was a surprise choice for the top job

LONDON, England -- George Carey with his "East Enders" background and pop-music-in-the-aisles style was a surprise choice as the 103rd archbishop of Canterbury.

But he will leave office in October to glowing tributes by other church heads for "leading by example" as a religious man in a secular age.

Installed in April 1991 as leader of the world's 70 million Anglicans, Carey was suddenly thrust into the exalted and highly traditional post he had never sought and later called "very wearying."

On Tuesday, after a decade of upheaval and regular turmoil in the Anglican church, the 66-year-old decided to quit three years early and step down at the end of October.

The son of a hospital porter who left school at 15, Carey's appointment marked a major change for the Church of England, which has traditionally chosen members of the upper class for the top job.

MORE STORIES Anglican head Carey to retire

A football fan who enjoys a pint of beer, he said he never had any ambition to be a bishop and thought the best job in the Church was that of an ordinary parish priest.

Attacked by critics for promoting "happy-clappy" evangelical services, he brought pop music into churches and took God's message out to pubs and supermarkets.

He drove through the divisive 1992 decision to ordain women as priests -- which led to several thousand vicars and churchgoers defecting to the Roman Catholic Church -- but angered gay rights campaigners by opposing the ordination of practicing homosexuals.

The first archbishop of Canterbury for centuries not to go to either Oxford or Cambridge university, Carey embarked on a mission to modernise the Church with a liberalism he insisted was not at odds with a commitment to traditional values.

"The Church has lost sight of the seriousness of sin," he once said.

He upset conservatives by having rock gospel music played on a synthesiser at his enthronement and constantly urged his clergy to make their sermons and services fun.

At Christmas 1997, he addressed thousands of supermarket shoppers over store loudspeakers.

But contrastingly he cut a bookish, schoolmasterly figure devoid of obvious gimmicks. He was never master of the soundbite, ill-at-ease with the cameras and so never became a "TV evangelist."

The manner of his appointment gave him a difficult start. It was thought that the Crown Appointments Commission, which draws up the shortlist for his successor, had put his name forward in an effort to push Margaret Thatcher into choosing Dr John Habgood, then Archbishop of York, whose social views she disliked.

Carey's tough stand on homosexuality brought gay rights protests

Carey was heavily criticised in the press particularly in the early years but increasingly grew in stature and became well regarded by other religious leaders as well as the politicians.

His thoughtful and dignified response to the events of September 11 will be remembered on both sides of the Atlantic.

The downside is that a feeling he somehow failed to give strong enough leadership to halt the decline in Church of England congregations.

Perhaps Carey's greatest achievement was maintaining unity in the Church following the 1992 vote by the General Synod for women to be ordained to the priesthood.

The vote sparked deep and bitter divisions with a number of high-profile defections from the Church of England to the Roman Catholic Church.

He was later to gain a more conservative reputation during the Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops in 1998 which declared homosexual relationships "incompatible" with the Bible and upheld the ban on the ordination of practising gay priests and the blessing on same sex marriage.

Carey -- married with four children -- endorsed the decision and insisted that there was "no room for any sexual activity outside matrimony".

His views attracted the wrath of gay rights campaigners, most notably in 1998 when gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell mounted the pulpit in Canterbury Cathedral during Carey's traditional Easter Sunday sermon. George Carey was born on November 13, 1935, in London's poor East End. He grew up on a municipal housing estate and left school at 15 to work as an office boy.

After serving as a radio operator in the Royal Air Force from 1954 to 1956 he studied at home to gain entrance to London University.

He graduated in divinity in 1962 and became a curate in Islington, north London -- and a lifelong supporter of the local football club, Arsenal.

He took pride in his working class roots, saying his background enabled him to speak with authority on social issues.

"I have seen the scars of social deprivation," he said. "I have known what it is to live with people who have been unemployed."

Britain's Chief Rabbi, Professor Jonathan Sacks, described Dr Carey as a "humane, warm and caring face" of Christianity who was a "blessed presence in British life".

"I personally have cherished our close friendship which has contributed much to strengthen the bonds between Christians and Jews," he said.

"He is a man who has kept his integrity and spirituality intact during difficult times and has thus been a compelling example of what it is to be religious in a secular age."