A clear majority of General Synod members wants women bishops. So does an overwhelming majority of diocesan Synod members (42 of 44 Synods voted in favour on Tuesday). Rank and file church people on the whole agree. Most members of the broader British public think it’s a no-brainer.
Despite all this, the drawn-out search for a legislative formula to allow women bishops today failed to win the needed General Synod majority in favour. The Synod’s procedures require a two-thirds majority in each of the three Houses. In total 324 members voted to approve the legislation and 122 voted to reject it. A handful of votes in the House of Laity meant the proposed legislation failed.
Normally the Church of England would have to wait until 2015, after the next General Synod elections, before it can reconsider defeated legislation, but a statement issued by the General Synod office held out the possibility that a procedure could be invoked to bring the matter back to Synod earlier.
So now Parliament might intervene, which amounts to “1559 come round again†if it happens.
I frequently invoke the example of the Church of Sweden and its long debilitating strife over WO as a kind of “Eram quod es, sum quod eris†(to quote a commonplace on medieval tomb inscriptions” “I was what you are; I am what you shall be”) mirror for the Church of England, but, in legal theory at least, the Erastian circumstances of the Church of England are far more thoroughgoing than those which prevailed in Sweden when the Church of Sweden was an established church (it was disestablished in 2000, but in way that left the liberal establishment totally in control of its governing structure). In Sweden, when the Church Assembly unexpectedly rejected WO in 1957 (with a majority of its bishops voting against it), the proponents were initially stymied, as Swedish law then required BOTH the Church Assembly AND the Swedish Parliament to approve any “ecclesiastical legislation†before it could become law. Not to worry, though: the Swedish Parliament rushed through legislation authorizing WO (which would apply to bishops as well as to priests), and then called new elections for a Church Assembly session to meet in 1958. In those elections, Swedish political parties put forward their own candidates for election as lay delegates to the Church Assembly, and the election campaign was attended by threats to disestablish the church and confiscate its assets. The strategy worked: in 1958 WO was approved (a number of bishops switched sides from the previous year’s vote), and the first women were (purportedly) ordained in 1960.
The legislation was attended by a “conscience clause†intended to benefit opponents of WO, but in 1983 that clause was revoked, and in 1994 (and since 2000 in the disestablished church) the ordination as deacons or priests of anyone opposed to WO has been forbidden, and the selection as bishops of any clergy opposed to WO likewise.
This could be the Church of England’s future as well, and, if I recall correctly, in England Parliament retains full authority to legislate “unilaterally†on church matters, should it choose to do so.
Those interested may wish to consult this legal case:
http://www.infotextmanuscripts.org/vexatiouslitigant/vex_lit_queens_bench_williamson.html
This 1997 case is a subsidiary to an earlier 1994 case, but I cannot find a report of the former case online. What is clear from it, however, is that it is still “settled law†in England that “the doctrine of the Church of England is whatever Parliament declares it to be.†So Erastianism rules okay.
The real parallel to England is Denmark, where the Danish Parliament legislated for WO in 1947 despite the opposition at the time to WO of eight of the ten bishops of the Danish State Church. The Danish government over the next decade ensured that only proponents of WO became bishops; only one was left by 1956, and after that bishop retired in 1968 none were subsequently appointed. In Sweden, where the government’s role in appointing bishops was limited from selecting one of the three highest “vote getters†in episcopal “elections,†at least two elections resulted in all three “finalists†being opponents of WO, and so it was not until after the last Swedish bishop opposed to WO retired in 1991 that the Swedish church authorities, urged on by the civil authorities, moved to proscribe the ordination as deacons and pastors, or the selection as bishops, of all opponents of WO.
Despite the headline, there is virtually nothing in this article about Parliament intervening. Some loonie fringe MP may propose it, but I would be very surprised if the major parties wanted a bar of it. And the elephant in the room is ignored – the largest and most successful (in terms of growth) churches in CofE don’t want a bar of women bishops. They mostly don’t allow women priests, yet their voice is rarely allowed to be heard in Synod.
Some of the comments by disgruntled supporters of the measure are bizarre. E.g. the suggestion that this is going to harm the CofE’s outreach – its decline in numbers only accelerated after women priests were allowed, so why on earth would anyone think that allowing women bishops would reverse the decline?
Or the Bishop of Leicester spluttering that Synod “are not hearing the voices of the young, unemployed, displaced or children. What would they think of this gathering?†Is this meant to be a serious comment – unemployed and children care about whether the CofE has women bishops???
Or this little gem from Ruth Gledhill: “The Church of England has forfeited right to speak on assisted dying — because it has just committed suicide.†Take an aspirin Ruth, and have a lie down.