The UWI, Regional Headquarters, Jamaica. Thursday, July 25, 2024. The Most Revd and Rt Hon Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, has been recognised with an honorary degree from The University of the West Indies (The UWI). On Saturday, July 20, at the University’s Regional Headquarters in Jamaica, the Anglican Archbishop was awarded a Doctor of Laws (LLD), during a Special Convocation hosted as part of an itinerary marking the 200th anniversary of the Anglican Diocese of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. 

In his conferral of the degree upon the Archbishop, on behalf of the Senate and Council of the University, Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Hilary Beckles noted, “As Archbishop Welby has chosen to join the diocese for its 200th anniversary celebration with this landmark visit to the region, our academy saw fit to honour his service in the church over the past three decades.” More specifically, Vice-Chancellor Beckles noted his distinction as an outstanding theologian, institutional leader, as well as the unifying head of the global Anglican community.

Archbishop Welby thanked The UWI for its honour and emphasized the institution’s commitment to social justice. Acknowledging The UWI’s leadership in the global reparatory justice movement, he also expressed gratitude for all the encouragement he has received in thinking more deeply about the legacy of enslavement and reparatory justice, “conscious of the future need for reconciliation.”

During his address, he said, “As a university with social justice at the core of its mission, this institution of The University of the West Indies is, and has shown itself to be at the forefront of the global reparatory justice movement. It has a commitment to greater advocacy and consciousness-raising to proper research and to the detailed working out of the implications of transatlantic chattel slavery and slave movement on the world around us, on its own communities, and on the places to which those communities have gone.”

Further contextualizing the need to look at these issues of justice, among those the Archbishop of Canterbury gave credit to include the researchers and academics, who, he explained, “have informed our approach, opened our eyes, to where we’re on the verge of launching the Healing Justice and Repair Fund.”

The Anglican Communion is one of the world’s largest and most diverse Christian communities. Archbishop Welby oversees the Church of England, also known as the Anglican Church. In 2023, the Church pledged £100m over the next nine years to a programme of investment for research, engagement, healing, repair, and justice following an investigation and discovery of its ties to transatlantic chattel slavery. Characterised as taking responsibility in the present, the initiative aims to address historical injustices and promote human flourishing.