produced by EWC vice president Katie Sherrod, with a poetry reading by Judy Conley in the background, is

available through the Caucus office.)

News in late 1996 was the announcement by the Anglican Church in Wales that they would join their sister

churches in the British Isles by ordaining women to the priesthood, marking more than half the Provinces in the

Anglican Communion having made that decision. As each member of the Anglican Communion moves toward a

more whole priesthood, I dare to believe that we are creating the realm of God on earth said EWC President

Cynthia Black.

Also of note that year was the ordination of an Ecuadorian deacon as an Anglican priest. A missionary to the

Latin American community in Rome, her ordination took place in the Anglican Church of St. Pauls-Within-the-

Walls, putting an ordained woman in sight of the Vatican. 1997 also saw the election of Catherine Waynick as

Bishop Coadjutor of Indianapolis, making seven ECUSA women bishops.

Out of the long-time commitment of the EWC to the full inclusion of gay men and lesbians in the life of the

church and in society at large, the Caucus continued its support of ECUSA and secular legislation calling for

human and civil rights. Among the resolutions passed at the annual meeting was the commitment to fight any

attempt to exclude lesbians and gay men from full inclusion in all orders of ministry.

The all-consuming issue for the Caucus for the years immediately following 1976 had been the struggle to

ensure acceptance of women as priests and bishops in every diocese of ECUSA. The canonical change mandated

acceptance, and most dioceses understood that the use of the word shall rather than may in the 1976 canonical

change meant precisely that ordination of women to priesthood and episcopate was the law of the Church.

The dioceses of Fort Worth, Quincy and San Joaquin, however, continued to resist despite heroic efforts by

members of their dioceses and the General Convention itself. The Indianapolis convention (1994) called for a

Committee on Dialogue. With Bishop Robert Rowley as chair, the committee held a series of hearings and brought

to the Philadelphia convention the call for compliance by every diocese with the canon (III.8.1) which had been

passed in 1976.

The EWC in its annual meeting that year commended the Dialogue Committee for the manner in which it had

made clear that as of January 1, 1977, the ordination canons were meant to be equally applicable to women and

men. Additionally the Board asked Dr. Pamela Darling to prepare a chronology of the many studies and legislative

activities which had led to the passage of the ordination canon in 1976. Entitled appropriately Equally Applicable,

it was sent to every bishop and deputy as homework for the Philadelphia convention.

Prior to the 1997 General Convention, the House of Bishops supported the Rowley Report in a mind of the

House vote, and in Philadelphia both the deputies and the bishops agreed legislatively in a vote which was close

to unanimous. The canons are the law of the Church and part of its doctrine, which all clergy swear to uphold at

the time of their ordinations.

Even as significant advances took place during this time period the first woman ordained priest in the

Philippine Independent Church, the election and ordination of Ann Tottenham as Bishop Suffragan in Toronto, the

translation by election of Bishop Suffragan Victoria Matthews to Diocesan in Edmonton, the report from the

Church of England that women number 10% of its clergy, Chilton Knudsen elected as Bishop of Maine (the 8th

woman) the question still remained: what next to move toward full acceptance of women in holy orders in every

ECUSA diocese?

As the EWC laid plans to monitor progress among the three non-complying dioceses, it also noted its

intention to work to assure that compliance with the canon meant that women were fully included in diocesan life

and worship throughout the Church. In addition it created a prayer cycle which included the names of the leaders of

the American Anglican Council as well as all persons in pain over the issue of womens ordination.

During the General Convention the EWC legislative team monitored the many and varied issues affecting

womens mission and ministry: acceptance of liturgical revision and the enrichment of worship reflecting the

churchs multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-generational membership; the addition of Julia

Emery, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Bloomer, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman and Hildegard to the