A significant complaint from Stephen Barney ”“ echoed by others ”“ was that the speech had undermined the speech of the Archbishop-designate, which happened to have come just before it.
But the whole case was built on a false premise, a misunderstanding of the true nature of the Chair’s role. During any debate only the chair of that debate must remain impartial; everyone else, Archbishops included, may speak as they like, in accordance with their consciences. The very idea that an Officer of the Synod may not do so has simply been imagined. It is not true.
Of course the absurd authoritarian vindictiveness of the proponents of the measure in question once again demonstrates that their ideals and their ilk ought not have been tolerated in the first place. The fatal mistake of the orthodox is that as true liberals they tolerated discussion while their now triumphant opposites refuse to countenance it. Oh, that we had been as oppressive toward them at the beginning of this debacle as they are now oppressive to us. They ought to have been systematically forced out to form their very own revisionist denomination rather than permitted to dwell within the Church’s body politic as a parasite, consuming and ultimately killing the host on which it fed.
As I read the English reports had the proponents of women bishops been content with the present arrangements for those who cannot in good conscience agree to women serving as priests or bishops the measure would have passed. But they wanted two bites at the cake and a sufficient number of lay members thought that unfair.
The Chairman rightly said that those who were to be protected had a right to advise what protection they thought they needed.