Sarah Mullally, the Bishop of London, was announced on Friday as Archbishop of Canterbury, the first time a woman has been chosen as the spiritual leader of the Church of England. AdvertisementMullally, 63, a former chief nursing officer for England, will face serious challenges including divisions over the treatment of women and LGBTQ people. She will also have to confront concerns that church leaders have not done enough to stamp out the sexual abuse scandals that have dogged the church for more than a decade. Naming a woman to the position is a major milestone for a church that ordained its first female priests in 1994 and its first female bishop in 2015. “I want, very simply, to encourage the Church to continue to grow in confidence,” she said in her first statement as Archbishop.