While the Episcopal Church has been internally struggling over ordination of gays, our brethren in the Church of England are still fighting the women’s ordination debate. A small but significant breakthrough came about over the weekend as the Church of England synod agreed that women should be allowed to become bishops.
That this is actually subject to debate — especially since the CoE allowed women to become priests in 1994 (the Episcopal Church has had women priests since 1976 and women bishops since 1989) — seems unutterably silly to me, but the fact is that many of the folks in the US leading the fight against gay rights in the church have also been those most dead-set against women’s ordination. Three Episcopal dioceses in the US still don’t ordain women to the priesthood, and many conservatives insist on calling the Presiding Bishop in the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, by the title “Mrs.” instead of “Bishop” (or even “Reverend”). Some claim it’s because of her politics, but I suspect that’s a secondary issue.
So it’s not a surprise that the issue has been beset by controversy in more staid England, and that some 1300 priests have claimed they’ll quit, or hop over to the Catholics, rather than accept women bishops.
(The primary argument against it — aside from general Biblical injunctions about women keeping in their place, dagnabbit, which even the conservatives don’t choose to proclaim loudly — is that Jesus chose only men as his twelve (closest) apostles. Of course, he also only chose Jews and speakers of Aramaic, but nobody seems to think those should be requirements for some reasons. More technical discussion here.)
Though the synod voted to accept women bishops in principle, the prediction is we won’t see any for several years. There’s further votes to be taken on processes and procedures surrounding the whole thing, plus coming up with ways to pastorally care for dioceses or parishes within the CoE that don’t want any of those female type bishops taking care of them. That leaves plenty of time for further pontification (so to speak), defection, or attempts to change the rules back.
Regardless, bravo to the CoE’s General Synod.
(via BD, along with the post title)
For those who wonder why not having an established (i.e., national) church is a Good Thing, consider the Church of England. Their general synod (governing assembly) just made the above decision, but nothing much is expected to come from it until 2014 or so at the earliest.
One of the main barriers (or drags) on the process? CoE canon law cannot be changed except by an Act of Parliament. The CoE is an established church. Just as it exercises (diminishing) control over the government (in terms of restrictions on religion and the monarchy), it is in turn under the control (slowly diminishing) of the civil government. The Queen, for example, is the actual head of the church (though she rarely exercises the power). The Queen and the Prime Minister have roles in the selection of bishops. And, as noted, Parliament has to approve changes in CoE canon and regulations.
For those who think a “national church” sounds like a swell idea, would you want Congress second-guessing what your religious leaders decide, or having a role in their selection?