Australias’s first woman bishop didn’t take long to find herself at odds with her boss, the primate of the Anglican church.
On her first day in her new role as Assistant Bishop of Perth, Kay Goldsworthy was asked whether women had shared the same experiences as homosexuals in their battle for recognition.
She was also asked if she would like to see homosexuals represented in the Anglican clergy.
“I think these are two different matters,” she replied.
“We are, as an Anglican church, at the moment engaged in a long process of listening carefully and attentively to the experience of homosexual Christian people, and that’s where we’re up to.
‘Like Bishop Goldsworthy, Dr Aspinall would not divulge his personal views on the issue.
“I have taken the view that my responsibility as primate of the Anglican Church of Australia is to try and keep the people who have very different views together and engaged in the discussion,” he said.
“I think if I was to be promoting a personal view all I would be doing would be adding to the polarisation and that would be undermining my responsibility as primate, so I’ve tried to keep me off the agenda and work towards a common view.” ‘
Those two sentences are a succinct explanation of why ‘Northern’ Anglicanism is doomed. It is hard to imagine a more un-catholic view of the Church as ‘the bulwark of truth’ and bearer of God’s revelation.