The House of Bishops will meet next Wednesday to discuss the next step in the legislation to allow women bishops. The response to a conÂsultation in August suggests that opinion remains polarised.
The legisation, as it stands, conÂtains Clause 5(1)(c), inserted by the Bishops before the July sessions of the General Synod in order to cater for traditionalist parishes. It stipulates that the Code of Practice should cover “the selection of male bishops or male priests the exercise of ministry by whom is consistent with the theological convictions as to the consecration or ordination of woÂmen” of the PCC. The clause was so divisive that a vote on final approval of the legislation was postÂponed until November…..
The steering committee proposed seven possible options in relation to the contentious clause…. A total of 120 submissions were received, it was announced on Wednesday. A third (41) were for simply deleting it; just under a third (35) were in favour of retaining it.
[blockquote] “Clause 5(1)(c) had become “toÂtemic” for a number of people, Bishop Willmott said. “There are other points in the proposed legisÂlation that give confidence to those who are unable, on grounds of theological conviction, to accept the ordination of women bishops.” His own view was that it was “imÂportant that, connected to legislaÂtion, will be the Code of Practice, which is bound to give support to the diocesan bishop but require him to set forÂward a scheme which will enable those two things to occur. I would want legislation to be as clear as possible . . . but with a code of pracÂtice that will spell out the proÂcesses and content of a diocesan scheme”.” [/blockquote]
The problem remains the same, and the problem is the bishops – they are the ones who are asking evangelicals, anglo-catholics and liberals alike to vote in favour of a significant change to the polity of CofE, but without knowing what it is. The contents of the Code of Practice are not known. and even if they were, they can be changed by the Bishops without any input from the other houses of laity and clergy.
The Bishops seem to have arrogated to themselves alone the power to review and recommend changes to the Code of Practice in future (which, given that Parliament is likely to go along with whatever they propose, so long as it is not too obviously outrageous, leaves control of the Code of Practice in the hands of HOB for ever more).
In the meantime, the CofE continues to lose adherents and income, while the orthodox evangelical congregations within it continue to make disciples and build up their contacts with groups outside CofE and in the wider world.