From here:

The draft Measure to permit the ordination women as bishops, approved today by the General Synod and sent for discussion and approval by Diocesan Synods, contains nothing which can satisfy the legitimate needs of members of Forward in Faith.

Now, though, is not the time for precipitate action. There will be ample opportunity for priests to take counsel together at the Sacred Synods called by the Catholic Bishops in each province in September, and for Forward in Faith to take stock at the National Assembly in October.

As the votes on Saturday illustrated, we remain as a Synod, it seems, committed by a majority to the desirability to seeing women as bishops for the health and flourishing of the work of God’s Kingdom in this Church and this nation. We’re also profoundly committed by a majority in the Synod to the maximum generosity that can be consistently and coherently exercised towards the consciences of minorities. We have not yet cracked how to do that. We all know that. To recognise it is not at all to gloss over it or to say that there is some kind of ”˜synodical juggernaut’ which has to roll on regardless of the unfinished business that Saturday put before us.

So, that’s it really – we have to recognise that those two goals are still the goals before us. Holding together is desperately difficult and to see it perhaps in terms of the service we give to one another may at least give us all a sense that we have something to work for in this process – and that, I hope, is what today will help us forward with. So I hope we can this morning recommit ourselves to that search for the goals that Synod seems to have settled upon, to do that in love and in hopefulness, in awareness of the extremely difficult decisions that face many and not minimising those and yet also in the belief that we are ”“ in serving one another here ”“ quite simply, serving the God who calls us.

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Canon David Houlding, a prebendary at St Paul’s cathedral, estimated that as many as 200 traditionalist clergy could leave the Church, taking thousands of worshippers with them.

“People’s patience is running out and many will now be asking whether they should try and practice their Catholic faith in the Church of England,” he said.

“The vote was a severe blow to the archbishop [of Canterbury] and it has pushed us closer to the door.”

A group of 70 traditionalist clergy met with a Catholic bishop on Saturday to discuss plans to defect to the Roman Catholic Church. Earlier this year three bishops travelled to the Vatican to talk over an offer made by Pope Benedict XVI inviting disillusioned Anglicans to convert to Catholicism.

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The main problem for Dr Williams is not that his last-minute compromise was rejected; it is that he allowed so much of his authority to be invested in it ”“ and Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, did not help, it must be said, by lecturing Synod on the need to support his colleague, drawing attention to Dr Williams’s vulnerability.

How can the Archbishop of Canterbury restore his authority? As the continuing saga of Dr Jeffrey John shows, the debate over gay bishops is far from over; but that about women bishops seems to have reached its conclusion. The Pope’s Ordinariate provides a structure for Anglo-Catholics who recognise the full authority of Rome. For them, the weekend’s events will clarify matters. Other traditionalists have hard choices to make, and we feel sympathy for them. But history suggests that most Church of England worshippers will accept women bishops as readily as they accepted women priests. They would welcome a little less agonising from Dr Williams and a more self-confident proclamation of the Gospel.

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Sixteen years after the first women priests were ordained in the Church of England, the bitter controversy about female authority in the church refuses to go away. This weekend it reached a new stage, when the archbishops of Canterbury and York narrowly failed to persuade the General Synod to accept a compromise on women bishops. Could it be time, perhaps, to end the acrimony and accept that the Church of England will have to split?

It is no exaggeration to say that the climate in the Anglican church for a generation and the whole of Rowan Williams’s seven-year tenure at Canterbury have been poisoned by the conflict between liberals and traditionalists, of which the role of women is a touchstone. The church is divided nationally, and it is divided even more deeply internationally. In essence, it could be said, there are already two Anglican churches, with the Archbishop of Canterbury striving heroically to hold them together.

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As the votes flickered up on the digital screen hanging inappropriately above the Archbishop of Canterbury it became slowly clear that the Church of England was being rent asunder.

For much of the past decade, the issue of women bishops has threatened to tear apart Britain’s state religion. This weekend, it finally did in York when the general synod, the church’s legislative assembly, refused to approve safeguards for the minority coalition of conservatives, evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics who feel that female leadership within the church is incompatible with their beliefs.

Barring a last minute reversal today when the synod continues its discussions over how it will consecrate women bishops, the church will signal that it intends to become a place where gender discrimination at its highest levels is officially outlawed.

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The Church of England’s ruling synod is due to return to the women bishops debate, with little chance of major concessions to traditionalists.

Little remains to limit the power of women bishops in the legislation under consideration on Monday.

But objectors say they have not given up trying to gain exemptions from serving under women bishops.

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It’s fair to say that there was an appetite for compromise, or comprehensiveness. You can see that in the very different voting figures for the amendments that would have given the opponents of women all they wanted: the one to preserve a system of parallel flying bishops failed by majorities of over two thirds in the clergy and bishops and nearly that figure among the laity. It’s interesting that it was those who would have been most concerned in these arrangements who rejected them most decisively.

But though the synod clearly didn’t want to give opponents all they had asked for, it was more reluctant to give them nothing at all. What the difference would have been in practice between the two sets of arrangements is quite unclear to me. Even under the new system, where there will be a code of practice, rather than legislation, to cater for the sensibilities of those who oppose women, it will be perfectly possibly for parishes and priests opposed to continue as if nothing much has happened. But it will be very obviously “as if”. The opponents will have what women bishops allow them and no more.

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On Saturday night, the Archbishop of Canterbury suffered the most humiliating defeat of his time in office when the Church rejected his compromise deal over women bishops. It followed a week in which Rowan Williams had found himself at the centre of a storm over the blocked appointment of Jeffrey John, the homosexual Dean of St Albans, to be Bishop of Southwark.

Castigated by liberals who accused him of betraying his old friend by not securing his promotion, the Archbishop arrived at the General Synod in York also facing a mutiny over his plans to avert an exodus of traditionalists opposed to women’s ordination.

On the eve of one of the most pivotal debates in the Church’s recent history, liberal bishops had met to discuss how they would derail proposals put forward by Dr Williams and Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York.

They were well aware of the impact that their rebellion would have on Dr Williams’s authority. But they were still prepared to take drastic action because of their despair at his suggestion that a new tier of male-only bishops should be created to minister to traditionalists. This would undermine the role of women bishops, they believed.

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The Church of England moved another step closer to an unbridgeable schism between traditionalists and reformers on Saturday when its General Synod, or parliament, rejected a bid by the archbishop of Canterbury to strike a compromise over the ordination of women bishops aimed at preserving the increasingly fragile unity of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

The rejection of proposals aimed at accommodating those who oppose women bishops appeared to strike a serious blow to the authority of the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, whose position as archbishop of Canterbury makes him the spiritual leader of the Communion. Although he has a long-established reputation as a liberal on theological issues, the archbishop, 60, has spent much of his seven years as the Anglican leader seeking to fashion compromises with traditionalists over the role of women and gays as priests and bishops.

But the votes on Saturday appeared to have blocked, perhaps conclusively, a settlement under which hard-line traditionalists might have accepted the appointment of women bishops. The proposals would have provided for a “complementary” male bishop with independent powers, working alongside a woman bishop, to minister to traditionalists unwilling to accept a woman as the head of their diocese.

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The Church of England was in fresh turmoil after two of its most senior clerics failed in their bid to avert a split over women bishops when a vote at the General Synod went against their compromise proposals.

New safeguards for objectors put forward by the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams and the Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu received the backing of a majority of the houses of bishops and laity of the General Synod.

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Update: You may find good details of the debate, including the vote margins in the three houses, here.

Members of the Crown Nominations Commission, which includes Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, rejected calls for Dr Jeffrey John to be made the next Bishop of Southwark.

The Dean of St Albans, who is in a civil partnership with another priest, was on the shortlist for the post and was considered to be a front-runner for the job.

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Dr John is a hugely divisive figure in the church after he was forced to stand down from becoming the Bishop of Reading in 2003 after it emerged he was in a homosexual, but celibate, relationship.

Promoting him to one of the most senior offices in the Church would trigger a civil war between liberals and conservatives and exacerbate existing divisions within the Anglican Communion.

Members of the Crown Nominations Commission, the body responsible for selecting bishops, will vote this week on whether Dr John’s name should now be put forward to the Prime Minister for final approval.

David Cameron has been made aware that Dr John is on the shortlist for the post and is understood to be supportive of such an appointment.

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Christians should seek to draw those of other religious traditions to faith in Christ, a new Church of England report says.

The report, Sharing the Gospel of Salvation (GS Misc 956, £9, from Church House Bookshop), states that there is nothing new or abnormal about the Church of England’s witnessing to other faiths, and offers examples of how this can be done sensitively in a multifaith society.

The report was commissioned by the Bishops after they were asked by the Synod to set out their understanding of the uniqueness of Christ in a multifaith society, and to offer examples of good practice in sharing the gospel. This followed the debate in February 2009 of a private member’s motion from Paul Eddy about evangelism among people of other faiths.

The report, drafted by a small group led by the Bishop of Willes­den, the Rt Revd Pete Broadbent, the Bishop of Southwell & Nottingham, the Rt Revd Paul Butler, and the Bishop of Birmingham’s adviser on interfaith relations, the Revd Dr Toby Howarth, was commended by the House of Bishops’ meeting in May.

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Confusion and scepticism greeted the latest plans to introduce women bishops, as the Archbishops of Canterbury and York announced another possible compromise to keep the Church together.
Ahead of July’s General Synod in York, which will be dominated by a 24-hour debate on women bishops legislation, the Archbishops have indicated that the Revision Committee’s proposed legislation will fail to keep the Church intact. The Archbishops have devised amendments which they “believe might provide a way forward”.

The Archbishops have described possible ”˜co-ordinate’ jurisdictions where the diocesan bishop would supposedly be legally entitled to exercise any episcopal function, but in practice would allow a nominated bishop to step in when requested.

This would secure the status of women bishops with no derogation of their powers while also appeasing those who do not want the oversight of someone whose authority depends on a woman bishop, the Archbishops claimed.

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From here:

The Catholic Group in General Synod is grateful to the Archbishops for their suggestion of a possible way forward for the Church of England, both to enable the consecration of women bishops and to provide for those who cannot in conscience accept the ministry of women bishops. We are particularly grateful for their recognition of the need for bishops with jurisdiction in their own right to minister to us, and to all those who share our convictions.

We look forward to studying the amendments in detail when they are published. We very much hope that they will provide ‘nominated bishops’ who will be real leaders in mission and ministry. It is also be vital that the amendments provide for us to continue to hold a principled theological position, looking to the faith and order of the undivided Church. We believe that the Church will be better served by the consistency of a national scheme of provision.

The Catholic Group is wholly committed to securing provision within the Church of England.

Canon Simon Killwick

(Chairman of the Catholic Group)

Read it all: Part one is here and part two is there (many thanks to Christian book dot com).

Dear Friends,

Some of you may have heard that on a recent visit to England, +Katharine Jefferts-Schori was asked to verify her orders of ordination and asked not to wear her miter. As you know, I am here on a partnership visit in the Diocese of Gloucester. Attached is a greeting and explanation from Bishop Michael regarding our own correspondence with Lambeth Palace, hopefully clarifying a policy that has been in place but not enforced. The incident with +Katharine was of course exacerbated by +Rowan’s Pentecost letter and +Katharine’s response. I must say that I have not met anyone here that is happy with +Rowan’s letter and the actions that it announced; but…rather many are embarrassed and upset.

As you will see from an update that Celeste Ventura and Channing Smith will send shortly, we are having a wonderful time in Gloucester being treated very well and shown great hospitality. There are no major issues regarding the wearing of my miter or being a woman bishop, although of course there are those who do not approve of women’s ordination. It is a very live issue here and there are lots of feelings and emotions as the Church of England approaches another vote, hopefully towards women in the episcopate, in just a few weeks.

Read it all and read the letter from the Bishop of Gloucester also.

Forward in Faith has welcomed the amendments which the two Archbishops are proposing. I am less sanguine than FiF about this attempt to get round the Revision Committee’s proposals concerning women in the Episcopate in England.

The notion the Archbishops are pressing is “co-ordinate jurisdiction” ”“ by which they mean that the ”˜nominated bishop’, a sort of downgraded PEV, will exercise those functions which the Diocesan Bishop decides to hand over in his or her diocese.

Now I have had to deal with diocesan bishops. Some of them see no problem in letting Flying Bishops operate. Others have allowed only minimal functions to be undertaken; for instance, not allowing them to ordain candidates within their diocese, even when the candidate has requested it from the start of training. There has been a Code of Practice agreed by the House of Bishops, and this Code has been undermined and ignored in far too many instances. Each diocesan has decided for himself how much of the Code to implement, and how much to ignore. The Archbishops’ proposals make this situation potentially much worse.

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The Archbishops of Canterbury and York are planning to force the General Synod to offer safeguards to traditionalists unhappy with women bishops. And I do mean force, since the Synod had already decided not to offer those safeguards.

Whatever. Although it’s none of my business, and if I was a supporter of women bishops I’d be outraged, I sort of hope that Dr Williams and Dr Sentamu get their way. As Fr Ed Tomlinson SSC notes on his blog, the Primates’ plan would separate worshippers who are serious about belonging to a Catholic Church as it was understood by the founders of Anglo-Catholicism ”“ none of whom would countenance any degree of communion, however remote, with women bishops ”“ from those prepared to turn a blind eye to the DIY ecclesiology of “alternative oversight”.

Fr Tomlinson, a supporter of the Ordinariate, makes a neat (if mischievous) distinction between those who want to be part of the “Catholic faith” and those who want to be part of “Catholic tradition”.

Read it all.

5.The amendments we intend to propose involve neither delegation nor depriving a diocesan of any part of his or her jurisdiction. Instead we seek to give effect to the idea of a ‘co-ordinate’ jurisdiction.

6. What this would mean is that:

the jurisdiction of the diocesan bishop ”“ whether male or female ”“ remains intact; he or she would remain the bishop of the whole area of the diocese and would be legally entitled to exercise any episcopal function in any parish of the diocese;
*
*
* where a parish had requested arrangements, by issuing a Letter of Request, the diocesan would in practice refrain from exercising certain of his or her functions in such a parishand would leave the nominated bishop to exercise those functions in the parish in question;

*
* the legal authority of the nominated bishop to minister in this way would derive from the Measure itself ”“ and would not, therefore, be conferred by way of delegation; but the identity of such a bishop and the scope of his functions would be defined by the scheme made by the diocesan for his or her diocese, in the light of the provisions contained in the national statutory Code of Practice drawn up by the House of Bishops and agreed by General Synod;
*

* thus both the diocesan and the nominated bishop would possess ‘ordinary jurisdiction’; the diocesan would retain the complete jurisdiction of a diocesan in law, and the nominated bishop would have jurisdiction by virtue of the Measure to the extent provided for in the diocesan scheme ”“ in effect holding jurisdiction by the decision of the Church as a whole, as expressed in the Measure;
*

* in respect of the aspects of episcopal ministry for which the diocesan scheme made provision, the diocesan and the nominated bishop would be ‘co-ordinaries’, and to that extent, their jurisdiction could be described as co-ordinate ”“ that is to say, each would have an ordinary jurisdiction in relation to those matters; and
*

* the Code of Practice would contain guidelines for effective co-ordination of episcopal functions so as to avoid duplication or conflict in the exercise of episcopal ministry.

Read it all.

A: When the hat is a bishop’s miter, and belongs to the female head of the Episcopal Church, symbolizing her rank in a church hierarchy dominated by men.

In a public snub that’s being dubbed “mitergate,” Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori was told not to wear her miter — a tall, triangular hat — during services in London last Sunday (June 13).

Some observers say it’s a stark sign of how relations have deteriorated between the Church of England, Anglicanism’s mother church, and its headstrong American offshoot, the Episcopal Church. Others call it an attempt by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion, to keep conservatives from seceding.

Read the whole thing.

Since there is no law in force allowing a woman to officiate as a bishop in any church of the Church of England, Bishop Jefferts Schori had to apply for a license to officiate as a priest. That statute provides, in relevant part, as follows (bold emphasis added):

(1) If any overseas clergyman desires to officiate as priest or deacon in the province of Canterbury or York, he may apply to the Archbishop of the province in which he desires to officiate for written permission to do so.
. . .
(4) Any permission granted under this section shall be registered in the registry of the province.
(5) An application for a permission under this section shall be made on a form approved by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York.
(6) It shall be an offence against the laws ecclesiastical, for which proceedings may be taken under the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure 1963 for any overseas clergyman to officiate as priest or deacon in the province of Canterbury or York otherwise than in accordance with a permission granted under this section, and for any clergyman knowingly to allow such an offence to be committed in any church in his charge.

Read the whole thing.

1. In a teaching document (Marriage- issued in 19991) the House of Bishops affirmed that “Marriage is a pattern that God has given in creation, deeply rooted in social instincts, through which a man and a woman may learn love together over the course of their lives.” In an introduction the then archbishops noted that “Lifelong marriage itself represents an unchanging ideal, and one which is the bedrock of a rapidly changing society.”

2. In the teaching document the House went on to explore the Church of England’s approach to the pastoral and other issues that arise when, sadly, marriages break down. It noted that, “The scope of God’s holiness is the scope of his mercy, and the more we are ready to open ourselves to the demand, the more we will know of his generosity, forgiving us where we have failed and granting us success where we thought we were bound to fail.”

3. Those called to serve the Church in holy orders are expected to be an example of godly living to those among whom they minister. Before people are selected for training with a view to ordination they are required to give information and assurances about their personal lives and, where relevant, marital history.

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So there you have it. In 1981 the Anglicans opened the door and by 2010 the slope has become so slippery that now Bishops are sliding.

So I ask my Anglican friends to do us all a favor and to cut to the chase and approve divorced and re-married lesbian Bishops. C’mon, you know you want to. Just do it now so all the so called traditionalists in the Anglican Church can either swim the Tiber or admit that they aren’t really ”˜traditionalists’ after all.

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Critics described the change in Church rules as “utterly unacceptable” and warned it would undermine the biblical teaching that marriage is for life.

Conservative and liberal bishops have been deeply divided over the issue, which they have been secretly discussing for months.

While Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, supported relaxing the rules, John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, is understood to have fiercely argued against a change.

But The Sunday Telegraph has learnt that the change was agreed at a meeting of the House of Bishops in May.

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Bishop Peter’s comments were made in the wake of The Foreign Office being forced to apologise for a leaked memo suggesting that the Pope’s forthcoming visit could see him opening an abortion clinic, blessing a gay marriage and launching a range of Benedict-branded condoms. The Bishop described the memo and its aftermath as distasteful.

Under questioning from Today presenter John Humphreys, Bishop Peter said: “There is a sort of familiarity breeding contempt in some circles in our society about our Christian heritage.”

The Bishop added: “Free speech is fundamental to society – and indeed Christianity was partly instrumental in that coming in, with its great emphasis on the individual rights in the early days of the Church ”“ but if free speech becomes irresponsible or objectionable or stirs up bad feelings it’s not good for society.

“Everyone in society has to have a certain restraint alongside a proper freedom of speech.”

Follow the link to the interview from April.

Bishop [Peter] Forster says that is “to go to a funeral only to find that the cremation or burial has taken place earlier in the day, and the funeral has become a celebration of the deceased’s life.”
This, he says, “jars”. And he goes on: “There have always been occasions when of necessity a funeral has been held without a body, but that seems different from a deliberate decision to hold a small private ”˜funeral’ before a larger ”˜celebration’ or ”˜commemoration’.

“I think there are several reasons why I regret this new trend in our society ”” and especially when it invades the church.”

Bishop Forster says the trend “easily gives the impression that our bodies don’t matter much”. But we are not, he avers, “spiritual chips off some cosmic block longing to return home.” Rather, we are “sacred individuals, made in God’s image, body, soul and spirit.”

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The new Bishop of Stafford was named today as the Vicar of Southampton, the Rev Canon Geoffrey Annas.

He was today visiting the County Showground at Stafford after the Queen approved his nomination.

Mr Annas, aged 56, succeeds the Rt Rev Gordon Mursell, who retires on June 25 on health grounds after a series of operations on his vocal cords.

He studied for the ministry at Sarum and Wells Theological College and served his first curacy at Southwark Holy Trinity with St Matthew in Southwark diocese from 1983 to 1987.

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