THE VICAR OF DIBLEY WOULD BE PROUD

About time more mitres... erm, I mean feathers were ruffled!

Via Thinking Anglicans, is a report by Jonathan Wynne-Jones in the Sunday Telegraph that Church of England bishops have met recently and narrowly voted to proceed with the historic reforms and to resist pressure to create separate dioceses free of women clergy.

In 1944, Li Tim-Oi was the first woman ordained priest in the Anglican Communion. In 1974, came the Philadelphia Eleven in the Episcopal Church. Two years later, at the 65th General Convention, TEC voted to open all three orders of ordained ministry to women. And still, there are so-called "traditionalist" dioceses in our Church which receive "alternative oversight" by a male bishop; one diocese refuses to welcome a visit from our current presiding bishop. Even after the 1976 ordinations, I thought these kinds of compromises were hypocritical. Either you ordain women, or you don't. Don't do it half-assed! The CoE bishops' decision to do away with separate dioceses for males will be voted on by its General Synod in July. I wish only that the Episcopal Church would have the balls to do the same!