Church of England Synod Moves One Step Closer to Ordaining Women Bishops
Though warning the road ahead may be rocky, bishops, clergy and lay delegates at General Synod favored women as bishops by almost 3 to 1
The Church of England moved a step closer to ordaining women as bishops as 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."
He added, "There are many hurdles ahead, and
we will gradually discover whether there is sufficient consensus in our church."
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 after assessing the various options.
General Synod is made up of three houses of
Bishops, Clergy and Laity and regularly meets twice a year. An additional meeting can be scheduled 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.
Coming after Anglican divisions over an
openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, in the Episcopal Church in the United States, the decision seems certain to widen the theological fissures among the world's 77 million Anglicans.
Particularly, the debate pits Anglicans in Africa and elsewhere in the developing world against many of those in Europe and the United States. But it also sets some bishops in England against others.
"There continues to be serious disagreement
within the Church of England, said Bishop John Hind of Chichester, an opponent of making women bishops. "It reveals deeper disagreements about how we do theology and agree doctrine."
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 these would affect clergy and laity who cannot accept the ordination of women to the episcopate on theological grounds."
The Rt.Rev. Geoffrey Rowel, Bishop of Gibralter and an advocate of delay in the process, noted that, "We are in danger of dividing the Church of England. We can't afford the easy luxury of division. We have to work for unity in the church."
The findings will be debated at the Church of
England's next scheduled General Synod meeting in February 2006. The process, however, is expected to take several years to complete.
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.
Opponents of making women bishops argue
that there is no biblical precedent for them because the apostles of Jesus were men. The Rev. David Houlding, the leader of a group of conservative priests at the synod, said the ordinations of women as bishops would mean "there is no room for us in the Church of England."
At the synod, several priests who are women
urged approval of making women bishops. The Very Rev. June Osborne, the dean of Salisbury, said there were no scriptural prohibitions on the ordination of women.
"Let us not set up artificial and inept lines that
no one can defend," she said.
Christina Rees, chair of Women and the Church
(WATCH), 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. 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.
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 June 2003.