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Church of England clears way for female bishops Church of England clears way for female bishops
(about 2 hours later)
The Church of England has cleared the last obstacle to appointing women as bishops. By a show of hands it overwhelmingly approved legislation that ends 20 years of wrangling. The Church of England has finally cleared the last obstacle to appointing women as bishops, overwhelmingly approving legislation at the general synod bringing to an end 20 years of wrangling.
The first women could be appointed before Christmas and arrangements are in place to fast-track anyone eligible into the House of Lords. By Easter, at the latest, there should be a female bishop sitting in the House of Lords. In a show of hands, around 30 people voted against the motion, out of around 480 present. The first women could be appointed before Christmas and arrangements are in place to fast-track anyone eligible into the House of Lords. It seems likely there will be a woman sitting in the House of Lords as a bishop by Easter next year.
“The work of a whole lifetime for so many, many people has just come to fruition,” tweeted Canon Rosie Harper. The archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, predicted that in 10 years’ time half the Church of England’s bishops might be women. “Ten to 15 years would be reasonable. It depends when people retire,” he said after the vote.
In the end, the opposition simply crumbled away. The conservative evangelicals retreated in the face of public shock and outrage and on the basis of a half-promise that one of them would be made a bishop to make up for the women whose authority they will not acknowledge. Welby said the church was already working to train women as potential bishops. “We are working very hard at training – the aim is that you end up with a big pool of people where gender is irrelevant. We are going to take this very very seriously.”
The Catholics, after decades of increasingly desperate intrigue, found a sort of home within the Roman Catholic church, but there were hardly any of them. After five years, 300 priests have signed up, whose total congregations amounted to 1,500. But he said the church would also be promoting some men who are against the ordination of women.
Those numbers are startling. After decades of claiming that liberalism had eviscerated the Church of England and led to shrinking congregations, it turns out that these conservatives had congregations with an average size of five. The first dioceses that might choose a bishop are St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, in Suffolk, Southwell and Nottingham, in Nottinghamshire, and Gloucester.
But as soon as the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, signed the measure that will make female bishops into law he launched into a survey of relations within the worldwide Anglican communion. He warned the synod that schism was an imminent danger. “Without prayer and repentance it is hard to see how we can avoid some serious fractures,” he said. Some supporters of the measure were disappointed by the lack of drama at Church House. Christina Rees, who has been campaigning on the issue for decades, said: “We’ve done a good thing. We’ve done a wonderful thing. The nation outside will have seen us and we should be whooping and shouting with joy. Why do we have to keep a dignified silence? It’s taken us 40 years, and we should be rejoicing loudly.”
He spoke at length about the problems facing Anglicans around the world: jihadi violence in the Middle East; Ebola, which he described as “a new Black Death” in west Africa; famine in Sudan; and war in Congo. He said “there are no strategies and no plans beyond prayer and obedience” that might hold the global Anglican community together. The Rev Rosalind Rutherford, 63, said: “I have been waiting for this since I was nine, and I noticed that my brother was allowed to join the church choir and I was not.”
Speaking after the vote, Welby predicted that half the Church of England’s bishops might be women in 10 years’ time. “Ten to 15 years would be reasonable. It depends when people retire,” he said. Elsewhere in the tea room, opponents were despondent. Two conservative evangelicals, Alison Wynne and Susie Leafe, who had both been among the minority who voted against the measure all the way to the bitter end, said they would accept the will of the majority. “We knew we’d lose when we came,” said Wynne. “But in my church there is a clear majority against this.”
Welby said the church was already working to train women as potential bishops: “We are working very hard at training – the aim is that you end up with a big pool of people where gender is irrelevant. We are going to take this very, very seriously.” Leafe, one of the leaders of her party, which refuses on principle to accept women teaching men, said she felt sorry for any female bishop. “I don’t envy these women given an impossible task. If my theological traditions are respected she could not have oversight of my church.”
But, he said, the church would also be promoting some men who are against the ordination of women. But in the end, the opposition simply crumbled away. Conservative evangelicals mustered a blocking third against the legislation two years ago but later retreated in the face of public outrage, and on the basis of a half-promise that one of them would be made a bishop to make up for the women whose authority they will not acknowledge.
The first dioceses who might choose a bishop are St Edmundsbury and Ipswich in Suffolk, Southwell and Nottingham in Nottinghamshire, and Gloucester. The Anglo-Catholic opponents of women, after decades of increasingly desperate intrigue, found a sort of home within the Roman Catholic church – although after five years, 300 priests have signed up, whose total congregations amount to 1,500.
The decision that women might be priests was taken in 1992. Making them bishops was simply a matter of promotion, with little further theological significance, so to liberals the resistance appeared more and more to be a matter of entrenched sexism. Women now make up a third of the church’s clergy, though many of them are still unpaid.
After signing the measure into law, Welby warned that the worldwide Anglican communion was in danger of schism. “Without prayer and repentance it is hard to see how we can avoid some serious fractures,” he said.
“There are no strategies and no plans beyond prayer and obedience” that might hold the global communion together, he added, announcing that the next global meeting of Anglican bishops, the Lambeth conference, previously scheduled for 2018, would not happen then and might very well not happen at all.