wfn.org | [ENS] Church of England moves closer to ordaining women bishops

["Matthew Davies" <mdavies@episcopalchurch.org>]

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Church of England moves closer to ordaining women bishops

By Matthew Davies

ENS 071205-1

[ENS] -- The Church of England moved a step closer to ordaining women as
bishops this week while its General Synod, the Church's main governing
body,
met July 8-12 in York, England.

Bishop Tom Butler of Southwark, who opened the Synod debate, said, "I
believe that there are good ecclesiological and theological reasons why
women should now be able to be ordained bishop."

A motion, which passed 367 in favor and 127 against, asked Synod to
consider
the process for removing the legal obstacles to ordaining women bishops
and
invited the House of Bishops, in consultation with the Archbishops'
Council,
to report back to Synod in January 2006 after assessing the various
options.

General Synod is made up of three houses of Bishops, Clergy and Laity
and
regularly meets twice a year in February and July. An additional meeting
can
be scheduled for the Fall if necessary. In the vote on the motion the
bishops were 41 in favor, 6 against, clergy 167 in favor, 46 against,
and
laity 159 in favor, 75 against.

Taking into account the opposition from some Church of England members,
the
motion also asked that specific attention be given "to the issues of
canonical obedience and the universal validity of orders throughout the
Church of England as it would affect clergy and laity who cannot accept
the
ordination of women to the episcopate on theological grounds."

The findings will be debated at the Church of England's next scheduled
General Synod meeting in February 2006. However, the process is expected
to
take several years to complete.

According to reports, Synod members voiced various viewpoints on the
issues.
Bishop John Hind of Chichester told the synod that the motion was
"premature
and a dangerous precedent," claiming that more theological debate in the
church was required before such a decision could be made. "Whatever
today's
outcome, our own fellowship will be further strained and ecumenical
relations compromised. We are in a lose-lose situation," he said.

Christina Rees, chair of WATCH (Women and the Church), which campaigns
for
women's equality in the church, welcomed the synod decision, Ecumenical
News
International reported.

"To delay any longer would have further sapped [the church's] energies
and
wasted some of our most precious resources -- dedicated, gifted,
experienced
and faithful women," she said. "It is a brilliant result. The vote
showed we
are ready to move forward and that in principle our church accepts women
as
bishops, and that is what we are going to do. Now we are on our way."

The newly-elected Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia,
Archbishop
Phillip Aspinall, also welcomed the decision. "The decision of the
Church in
England is consistent with the decision our Church took at General Synod
last year," he said. "And just as it will now take some years for the
English Church to look at its legislation and where necessary amend it,
we
too in Australia are in that same process."

The Church of England opened the priesthood to women in November 1992,
five
years after women were first ordained to the diaconate. Currently, one
in
five Church of England priests is female.

Formal discussion and debate in the Anglican Communion began in 1920
when
the Lambeth Conference first considered the issue.

The first women priest in the Communion was ordained in Hong Kong in
1944.
In 1974, there was an "irregular" ordination of 11 women in the U.S.
Episcopal Church, which officially authorized women's priestly
ordination
two years later.

Three provinces -- the U.S. Episcopal Church, Anglican Church of Canada
and
the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia -- currently
have
women serving as bishops. Bishop Barbara Harris, now retired suffragan
of
Massachusetts, became the Anglican Communion's first woman bishop after
her
election in 1988 and ordination in 1989.

Eleven additional provinces have approved the ordination of women
bishops
but have yet to appoint or elect one. One such province, the Scottish
Episcopal Church, voted to accept women bishops when it met in
Edinburgh,
Scotland, in June 2003.

The General Synod is the national assembly of the Church of England
which
came into being in 1970 replacing an earlier body known as the Church
Assembly. It continues a tradition of synodical government which, in
England, has its origins in the medieval period.

The Synod concluded its meeting July 12 with Holy Communion and closing
ceremonies.

-- Matthew Davies is staff writer and web manager of Episcopal News
Service.

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