* Amendment sent back to bishops, synod to reconsider in Nov
* Bishops’ amendment angers pro-women supporters
* Archbishop says adjournment can lowering temperature of
debate
By Avril Ormsby
YORK, England, July 9 (Reuters) – The Church of England
delayed a vote on allowing women bishops on Monday after
reformers rejected a last-minute concession to conservatives
keen to keep the posts reserved for men only.
The Church’s General Synod voted to send back to their
current bishops for further consideration an amendment allowing
dissenting parishes to choose their male bishop as their leader
if a woman is named to head their diocese.
That put off a final vote on the draft legislation, which
most Church of England dioceses have already approved, until the
Church’s next synod, or parliament, in November.
Along with the question of same-sex marriages, the
consecration of women as bishops is among the most divisive
issues facing the world’s 77 million Anglicans.
Women already serve as bishops in Australia, New Zealand,
Canada and the United States but the Church of England, the
mother church for the worldwide Anglican Communion, has been
mired in a dispute between reformers and traditionalists.
The thought of voting for the amendment, which campaigners
for women bishops said would enshrine discrimination against
women in law and reduce them to “second-class bishops”, was too
much for many reform-minded delegates.
It was a bittersweet moment for supporters who have battled
more than 10 years to see women don the mitre, the bishop’s hat
that signifies the authority to ordain priests, head dioceses
and claim a link back to the original Twelve Apostles.
“Leaving here with unfinished business will feel like an
anti-climax,” the Bishop of Dover, Trevor Willmott, said, when
proposing the adjournment.
“But there are worse things than unfinished business. To
leave here having driven this legislative process over the cliff
would be the worst of all outcomes.”
MALE AUTHORITY
Conservative evangelicals, who make up a growing, youthful
and wealthy part of the church, believe the Bible says only men
can be Church leaders. They say they may withhold funds or join
independent churches if there is insufficient provision for this
view.
Traditionalist Anglo-Catholics want to preserve the chain of
male authority in the Church that they say goes back 2,000 years
to the dawn of Christianity. They say a woman bishop ordaining
male or female priests, or even a male bishop ordaining a woman
priest, would break that chain.
Rowan Williams, who as Archbishop of Canterbury is head of
the Church of England and spiritual leader of the Anglican
Communion, said an adjournment would give “at least the chance
of lowering temperatures”.
Traditionalist Anglo-Catholics and conservative evangelicals
have said they will use the adjournment to ask for more
protection for their interpretation of the role of a bishop.
It leaves the bishops the tricky task of trying to come up
with a solution that pleases all sides, having already been
criticised for ignoring the wishes of the overwhelming majority
of the church’s dioceses by proposing the amendment.
The amendment would guarantee that any parish objecting to a
woman bishop could opt to follow an alternative male bishop of
its choosing who has consistent theological convictions – going
further than the original draft legislation.
Anything agreed by the synod will have to be robust enough
to get through Britain’s parliament, which is currently
considering reducing the number of bishops in the House of
Lords, or upper chamber.
Many observers had expected the Church of England, which
approved women priests 20 years ago, to follow other churches in
the Communion in allowing women bishops.
Each of the 44 member churches in the Communion can decide
for itself to take this step or not. Many Anglicans in
developing countries are strongly opposed to women clergy.
But the Church of England hit a stalemate after the bishops
introduced the amendment in May in an attempt to reassure the
traditionalist Anglo-Catholics and conservative evangelicals.
Those who support women bishops want the amendment removed,
even if it means a short delay after all their years of working
for the measure.
“I would infinitely prefer it to go back to the bishops to
give them one more chance rather than defeat it now,” Jean
Mayland, 76, who was one of the first women to be ordained a
priest in 1994, told Reuters on the eve of the vote.
“Maybe in November we will still have to defeat it, but we
have to keep on hoping, praying and trusting.”
(Editing by Tom Heneghan and Alison Wililams)
