The issue has caused a great deal of hurt and pain, on both sides – liberals (pro-women bishops) and traditionalists (anti) alike.
“It feels like a bereavement,” said Canon David Houlding, a vicar in north London, and one of the loudest voices against female bishops.
“The Church of England will never be quite the same again.”
So will he and others now leave?
“We don’t know. We’re still struggling to find a way forward.”
While he believes 500 years of history has been turned on its head, others believe the cobwebs have finally been blown off one of the Church’s most discriminatory laws.
One female priest, the Reverend Miranda Threlfall-Holmes from Durham, couldn’t disguise her relief.
The C of E is finished. It is time to build a new Anglican presence in England from scratch. Perhaps it is already beginning.
The CofE will now discover what America’s mainline liberal churches already know but refuse to acknowledge; womens ordination is an unmitigated disaster on every front. It is the denial of scripture, tradition and reason and has led to the mass emptying of the pews. First the men left these “progressive” churches and now their wives and children are following them in one of the greatest de-churching episodes in human history. Who gains? The evangelicals and the Catholics and I say good for them. At least for me, Rome has never looked more attractive and after this year of discernment that is where I may well be going.
Aah yes un-named liberal- but if one of the wimbledon tennis players lowered the net and used two rackets- then I am sure their opponent would complain and very bitterly. Because the rules would have been changed – as happened in the church. Thus your bitchy comment is rather deceiving and disingenius,
[blockquote]One female priest, the Reverend Miranda Threlfall-Holmes from Durham, couldn’t disguise her relief.
“It’s important for the whole country because bishops sit in the House of Lords,” she pointed out.
“And there’s currently a group of people within the legislation of this country which is closed at the minute to women, which is wrong.”
She also believes the Synod vote will help female priests feel fully valued within the wider church. [/blockquote]
Reason 1) Politics and the house of Lords. Reason 2) Feeling fully valued.
Its a battle between ‘my right to power’ and ‘may call to serve and obey’…..now which of those has the Christ image close at hand.
“500 years of history” is too short. It’s nearly 2,000 now, or perhaps 1900? I’m not precisely clear on the date at which there was a functioning Christian presence in England.
Isn’t the fragrant Miranda Double-Barrel the lady mentioned in “New Directions” a month or so ago who somehow managed to go through selection, theological college, ordination and (genuinely scholarly) research for her doctorate in ecclesiastical history without ever realising that the C of E doesn’t already have women bishops?
The C of E as I knew it is dead. Among the signatories of the open letter organised by FiF UK is an eightysomething priest who was my vicar forty years ago. He had spent much of his ministry outside the Anglo-Catholic “comfort zone” in parishes without “Catholic privileges”. Priests used to take on parishes of churchmanship not their own, and bishops encouraged them to do so. The ordination of women has killed that stone dead.
I am also gobsmacked by the BBC piece. Did the author REALLY expect people to walk withing 48 hours of a preliminary decision at a very early stage in a process which will take years?
Well, I guess we’ll just have to now think about what to call the house of Lords, since clearly that word is misogynist and for a woman bishop to sit in something called the House of Lords would be just too much to have to deal with. How about the House of Lords and Priestesses? House of Lords and Lordettes?
Katherine,
St. Patrick began his mission to the Irish in the mid 400’s. In his auto-biography, he mentions that his father was a priest (or possibly a deacon) in England (Patrick was captured in a slaving raid by Irish slavers). Before this there was already missions to Ireland, most notably by a missionary named Paladius.
So I think it’s safe to assume that there was a Chrisitan presence in England dating back to the late 1st or early 2nd century, probably through either Roman citizens, soldiers, or slaves or all three via Roman colonization.
Beannacht De Leat! (God Bless you in Gaelic)
Jim Elliott <><
midwestnorwegian,
A woman who has the same equal rank of a Lord is called a Lady (the equal of the rank of knight is a dame).
So it could be House of Lords and Ladies or just House of Nobles.
(You know what they say, “Once a king, always a king, once a knight is enough”)
Peace
Jim E. <><
Ah, but Jim, will the grasping disatisfied feminists who succeed in destroyong the CofE be content to be called “Lady” rather than “Lord” when standing in the house of Lords? Perhaps a new word must be coined: Lordette or Lordess? Lordperson?
Not hugely important, but the House of Lords has contained women for many years, at least since the introduction of life peerages. (I don’t know whether any of the very rare women who inherited peerages in their own right were allowed to sit.)
Libraryjim – thanks, but of course I did know this already. Lords and Lordessess or Lordettes has a nice ring to it.
The Rev Threllfall-Holmes may only be able to dream about female bishops sitting in the Lords. If the liberals have their way, there may no longer be a House of Lords in which to sit.
Only a very few bishops actually sit in the Lords anymore.
I dunno,#10, but I do know that none of them is straight. This is called lordosis. LM
#5 Katherine & #8 Libraryjim. I believe you are both correct about Christian presence in England the 2nd Century or so. When the Romans pulled out of England about that time they left many Christian believers behind. To say that St Patrick converted the “heathen” is really not correct. Baptized and Confirmed – perhaps. When Patrick showed up in the Britiish Isles there were functioning ( though primitive ) churches. Or so my Church History books say.