(NPR) - The Church of England voted Monday to ordain women as bishops.
Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the church's spiritual leader, said before the vote that the public would find it "almost incomprehensible" if the church's General Synod did not approve the change. Given all that they have said and done for the past many decades I can only agree. If you've let so much tradition and belief flow under the bridge why not let women rule?
A similar proposal was narrowly defeated in 2012. A revised proposal had been put to a vote and approved in 43 of the church's 44 dioceses, according to the BBC.
Under the revised plan, opponents can request male priests and bishops, but they are offered no guarantees. Read: Whinge to your heart's content, but we are required to only reluctantly lift up a single eyebrow and then wave our hand at you with the most feeble of recognitions before we laugh at you as you depart.
Outside of England, more than 20 women serve as Anglican bishops in countries such as the United States, India and New Zealand. The most recently ordained woman is Bishop Melissa Skelton, who took over the Canadian diocese that includes Vancouver in March.
David Banting, a lay member of the church, complained to The Telegraph newspaper that the decision could leave churchgoers confused about gender roles.
"We live in a world which wishes to remove or minimize or disregard gender," Banting said. "The government has done so in regards to marriage already, now the church appears to be doing so in regard to the orders of ministry."
But the change had widespread backing, including support from British Prime Minister David Cameron. It comes more than 20 years after the Church first allowed women to serve as priests. That is how a "church" unmoored from tradition is left to act. "Backing" and "support" trump all.
The proposal required two-thirds approval and passed in the House of Laity by a vote of 152 to 45, with five abstentions. The vote in the House of Bishops was nearly unanimous, with 37 in favor, two against and one abstaining.
Monday, July 14, 2014
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Whatever might have been possible before this vote, from this point forward Anglican orders are a dead letter for the Orthodox Church even as they have been for Rome.
ReplyDeleteI want to see the Anglican Communion's reaction when a man is consecrated bishop by three female co-consecrators.
ReplyDeleteThe likely response will be "What difference does it make?"
ReplyDeleteIt's 'Game over - Ecumenism' for the Anglicans and the Church.
"The introduction of the institution of female bishops will lead to the elimination of even a theoretical possibility of the Moscow Patriarchate recognizing the church hierarchy of the Anglican Church."---Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk
source:
http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=10356
Anglicans have already had female bishops for quite a while. This is nothing new.
ReplyDeleteThe snarky comments really say more about you than they do about the Anglicans. I don't know what need they feed in you, but I do wish that Orthodox bloggers would consider the harm they do to the Church by their nastiness.
ReplyDeleteSad, but this is what happens when you allow your church to be dictated by the worldly whims of state and society.
ReplyDelete"The Orthodox Church, however deep its longing for reunion, cannot enter into closer relations with the Anglican communion until Anglicans themselves are clearer about their own beliefs" -Kallistos Ware
It seems the Anglicans have made their beliefs abundantly clear. Game over.
I wonder whether this will result in any more of them jumping ship into Traditional Anglican communions or the Roman Catholic Anglican Ordinary...
Metropolitan Kallistos is now Orthodox Co-Chair of an "official" body called the The International Commission for the Anglican - Orthodox Theological Dialogue. I hope that this group now realises it has nothing to offer anyone and stops wasting any further time on pointless discussions.
DeleteDespite implausible but loudly-trumpeted hopes, it's never really been anything more than a conversation forum for Anglican theology geeks and Orthodox theology geeks. It doesn't hurt anything, and doesn't cost much. At best, it's cheap advertising for us -- the more people that know we exist, the better.
DeleteTo hear some people say it, heresies about the nature of the Trinity, heresies about the nature of the Church, and heresies about the nature of the Eucharist are far less important than whether or not they ordain women and gay people.
ReplyDeleteAs far as I'm aware there's nothing against ordinations of celibate men with homosexual inclinations (Please correct me if I'm incorrect on this). There is no ban on ordination of women, just the fact that it is impossible.
DeletePity about the Anglicans, though. They were finally returning to an orthodox position with regards to the Eucharist/transubstantiation when they decided to scrap everything else. True, their orders were suspect to say the least, but that was nothing some conditional re-ordination couldn't have fixed.
The Roman Catholic Anglican Ordinary looks like it will be the closest thing to what a pristine Anglican church could have looked like (liturgically anyway).