The votes were 44 for and three against with two abstentions in the House of Bishops, 148 for and 45 against in the House of Clergy, and 132 for and 74 against in the House of Laity.
The vote in the House of Laity, at 64%, was just short of the required majority.
A handful more of “yes” votes would have tipped it over the two-thirds mark.
Update: BBC Live–Church of England General Synod rejects women bishops.
While the vote in the lay order may have been by a slight margin, it is still a significant development that the vote failed, and it should give some hope for the future of the Church.
My prediction – the bishops will meet and determine a strategy. The gang of six will reintroduce the bill, offering a slightly strengthened accommodation, but one which is still far less than what the orthodox said was the bare minimum necessary.
They will offer a lot of big speeches, and hope that the dust and the last minute change will move the couple of votes necessary over to their side.
I fear you may be right, #2, but I hope you’re wrong.
Mark, I expect you are right. The bishops are overwhelmingly in favour of women bishops, and they mostly want to do it by stealth – i.e. offer the traditionalists [i]apparent[/i] protections, which can be quietly subverted or nullified later.
On the one hand, the bishops don’t want the radical liberals to get the opportunity to bring forward a no-holds-barred bill, i.e. one which offers the traditionalists no concessions at all, because that would galvanise the opposition, and probably cause a number of “neutral” representatives who don’t like open conflict to change their vote to a “no”.
But also, they don’t want to go the slow road of re-introducing a reasonable measure and going through the years of approval process, because they can sense that the orthodox evangelicals and anglo-catholics are now getting organised and even (shock, horror) working together. There is no guarantee that a future Synod will be better disposed than this one to women bishops, more likely the reverse.
The bishops would have little fear of losing any vote in House of Bishops or Clergy. But on the current numbers in the House of Laity, they need (a) 6 of the 74 “no” voters to change their vote to a “yes”, (b) none of the 9 abstentions to change their vote to a “no”, and (c) none of the 132 “yes” votes to change their votes to a “no”.
That may well be achievable – several prominent lay members of Synod stated before this vote that they personally wanted women bishops but were going to vote “No” to this particular measure. If the bishops can come up with something that satisfies them, yet without losing anyone else, then they can do it.
#5 The infuriating thing was that a balance was within reach more than once – first with the co-ordinate authority proposal, then with the old version of 5.1(c). But Synod chose to ignore the bishops’ wisdom and leadership on both occasions, and instead go for “respect” language knowing full well that traditionalists don’t feel particularly respected already, and it’s only likely to get worse going forward.
Clearly some who are in favour of WB, but also want to see a proper place in the CoE for those who disagree with them, have recognised this fact. Shame that only one House had the integrity to do so.
Petr dH, whatever way you look at it, there is a disjunct between House of Laity and House of Bishops. House of Bishops voted overwhelmingly for this measure, whereas House of Laity did not (and would not have, even if the measure somehow had scraped through). I am not sure that as a house the bishops can be said to be showing either wisdom or leadership – they are clearly out of touch with many laity.
That becomes even more pronounced when one considers that the very large evangelical churches (which mostly do not permit women priests, let alone bishops) are not proportionally represented in General Synod.