Below is form the BBC...

-- ZAROVE (ZAROFF3@JUNO.COM), November 03, 2004

Answers

As Church prepares to vote on women bishops, measures to quell opposition are on the agenda THE Church of England could have women bishops within seven years under proposals to be debated by the General Synod next year. A bishops’ report yesterday set out a range of options from maintaining the status quo to a simple change in the law making it legal to ordain a woman to the episcopate. The Church is likely to appease opponents by making pastoral provision for the minority who still oppose women’s ordination. It may even impose a “stained-glass ceiling” to ensure a woman cannot become Archbishop of Canterbury. The report acknowledges a lack of consensus in the Church on women’s ordination, with traditionalists and conservative evangelicals strongly opposed. The report pleads for harmony. It says: “This world will one day pass away and the ecclesiastical structures on which we expend so much time and energy, important though they are, will pass away with it. “In the light of this fact, we need to give the highest priority to deepening the quality of our love for the other members of the body of Christ, perhaps especially those with whom we most strongly disagree on issues such as the ordination of women to the episcopate.” The Church will debate the report at the next synod meeting at Church House, Westminster, in February. In July, the synod is expected to vote on a motion to remove the legal obstacles to women bishops. The measure will then be debated by diocesan synods. If a majority agree, it will need final approval with a two-thirds majority from bishops, clergy and laity before it can be approved by synod. This process will take about four years. The measure will then go to Parliament’s ecclesiastical committee and be voted on by both houses of Parliament before it can receive Royal Assent and then be “promulgated” by the synod. This could take at least another year. It would then be up to the Crown Appointments Commission to select a woman for a vacancy and the Prime Minister would make the final decision of recommending the woman to the Queen for the post. But a diocesan bishop could appoint a woman as his suffragan immediately after the measure became law if he wished. Of the 44 diocesans, 39 support women bishops. Canada, the US and New Zealand already have women bishops. Scotland has voted to consecrate them but no woman has as yet been selected. More than 700 submissions were received by the bishops’ working party set up by the General Synod at the request of the Ven Judith Rose, former Archdeacon of Tonbridge. The Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, chairman of the working party, made up of lay and ordained men and women from across the different church traditions, said: “We have looked at what the Bible as a whole says about men and women in the world and in the Church.” Most of the traditionalists on the Anglo-Catholic wing who opposed women priests believe that it is nevertheless illogical to ordain women priests and not bishops. Their main concern will be to secure adequate pastoral oversight and they will campaign for a third province, or church within a church, to sit alongside Canterbury and York. The chief opposition will come from evangelicals, who cite St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 11: “The man shall be the head of the woman.” But Dr Nazir-Ali, who advocates women’s ordination, said this chapter also made clear that women had a ministry in the early church. He said: “What we realised in our group is that whatever else 1 Corinthians 11 may be about, it is about the ministry of women in the church. We can debate what kind of ministry that is, but that there is a ministry of women in the church in the New Testament cannot be doubted.” He did not believe this was an issue that would split the Church. Dr Nazir-Ali said: “If the Church decides after due consideration to ordain women to the episcopate, we think it will be possible, given good will on every side, to maintain the unity of the Church.” The Archbishops of Canterbury and York, Dr Rowan Williams and Dr David Hope, welcomed the report, saying: “We are happy to commend it for prayerful study within the dioceses of the Church of England and to invite other Churches in the Anglican communion and our ecumenical partners to let us have their reflections on it.” But the evangelical Church Society said the Church would be acting ultra vires if it consecrated women bishops. A spokesman said: “The doctrines, canons and legal establishment of the Church mean that it has no power to establish something that is contrary to Holy Scripture.” WAYS AHEAD Maintain status quo Single clause legislation that the ordination of women to the episcopate is lawful Explicit provision for some form of extended or alternative episcopal oversight for opponents Establishment of a “third province” with its own bishops and archbishop with an exclusively male priesthood to which clergy and parishes could opt in Women could be appointed as area or suffragan bishops but not as diocesans Women could be made bishops within a team of bishops in each diocese, of which at least one would be male Clergy who quit over the issue could be given financial compensation FOUR ALREADY ON THE LADDER The Very Rev June Osborne, 51, Manchester graduate, was installed as Dean of Salisbury in May, making her most senior woman priest. In 1994 she was one of the first women to be ordained. Her emotional speech to the General Synod in 1992 is believed by many to have tipped the balance, securing the necessary two-thirds majority in favour The Very Rev Vivienne Faull, Dean of Leicester, 49, Oxford graduate and Cambridge MA, was among the first 1,000 women to be ordained and, as chaplain to Clare College in 1985, was the first woman to hold such an appointment. She ran the Greenbelt Christian rock festival for five years Canon Lucy Winkett, a 36-year-old Cambridge graduate, is Precentor of St Paul’s Cathedral. She said this summer that a sea change of opinion could take place in the churches as a result of the ordination of women as bishops, “if we could learn to disagree well” The Rev Joanna Jepson, 28, Cambridge graduate and curate, who was born with a jaw defect and won the right for a judicial review into a case where a woman had a late abortion of a baby with a cleft palate. The police reopened the case and thefile is with the Crown Prosecution Service

-- ZAROVE (ZAROFF3@JUNO.COM), November 03, 2004.

There is no such thing as an Anglican bishop or priest or deacon for that matter.

Their orders are not valid. Canon Lucy indeed! I find the whole issue hilarious.

-- Hugh (hugh@inspired.com), November 04, 2004.

And I look here to find out what my church is doing.

But thank you for that.

The real split has already been hit. Women priests are far less contriversal than openly gay ones.

Sean

-- Sean Cleary (seanearlyaug@hotmail.com), November 05, 2004.

Sean

A gay man can be ordained, a woman can't.

-- Hugh (hugh@inspired.com), November 07, 2004.

no, wrong.

We were married by a woman priest. That was done long before the gay problem got bad. Like more than 12 years ago.

Sean

-- Sean Cleary (seanearlyaug@hotmail.com), November 07, 2004.

"A gay man can be ordained, a woman can't"

now that is the Roman not Episcopal church's position/problem. From what I have heard, some of the celebates are possibly gay. At least the ones generating all those lawsuits.

On the other hand, the Roman side does not encourage it, nor officially tolerate it (beyond the circumstances that got the whole church repeatedly sued.).

-- Sean Cleary (seanearlyaug@hotmail.com), November 07, 2004.

well, mr. headman,

take a gander at the adam and eve story... pretty good prediction of the world today, neh?

actually, the catholic church is NOT sexist. She recognizes the integral and beautiful differences between men and women and allows different forms of ordination according to their abilities by God to be ordained. Of what use is it to claim that you arent sexist if all you say is that in order for a woman to be fulfilled, she has to fill a man's role? THAT, dear sir, is what i would consider sexist.

-- paul h (dontSendMeMail@notAnAddress.com), November 07, 2004.

Sean

Please clarify what you are whittering on about. My statement stands: the ordination of a woman can never be valid. The oridnation of a gay man can be.

-- hugh (hugh@inspired.com), November 08, 2004.

Your statement stands you say.

Good. It certainaly stands in the Roman church. But the topic was what was happening in the Episcopal church. And within that context, that statement does not stand.

Sean

-- Sean Cleary (seanearlyaug@hotmail.com), November 08, 2004.

i think that in that case, hugh's statement about how episcopals don't have valid ordination powers would be the one that would stand. his other statement is an answer to a different question.

-- paul h (dontSendMeMail@notAnAddress.com), November 08, 2004.

Paul

It was Sean who raised the gay issue. You are correct in what you say, which is what I stated in the first place: there is no valid ordination in the Episcopal 'Church' anyway so who cares if they appoint women 'bishops'

-- hugh (hugh@inspired.com), November 09, 2004.