The bishops have made their decision regarding Clause 5(1) (c) The final text proposed by the House of Bishops is:
Substitute for the words in clause 5(1)(c):" the selection of male bishops and male priests in a manner which respects the grounds on which parochial church councils issue Letters of Request under section 3"
The House also agreed to establish a group to develop the illustrative draft Code of Practice published in January to give effect to the new provision.
According to the report on the BBC this morning, the Bishops believe that those opposed to the legislation to consecrate women as bishops do not have sufficient votes in General Synod to defeat the measure and therefore they can proceed with it and the revised clause with impunity. The fact that the Bishops have decided to withdraw the original clause and substitute the wording quoted above, demonstrates their surrender to the strong-arm tactics of militant women and the total disregard they have for the traditionalist position despite all the promises made and reassurances given when the law was changed to allow the ordination of women. My feeling is that this revision gives very little, if any, protection to Anglo-Catholic parishes who have the misfortune, for example, to be in a Diocese with a militant woman bishop determined to “do it her way”.
Perhaps this reflects Cantuar's admission only this week that he's not man enough for the job.
ReplyDeleteI'm a little unclear, Father, at this remove of exactly how this is intended to work. I presume the idea is that a PCC can request a male priest when a vacancy occurs and the oversight of a male bishop should their diocesan bishop be a woman? If that is the case, I would agree that you are right to be worried. The phrase 'in a manner which respects' looks a little less ironclad than one might wish. It seems to rather depend upon the individual goodwill of those to whom these letters of request will be addressed ... and such goodwill, if what I have read of how this issue has progressed, may well be in short reply ...
ReplyDeleteA "Code of Practice will not do" has of course become a code of practice will do very nicely. Was that not a promise which, just like the promises made back when women were ordained to the priesthood, has now been broken. Is what is proposed catholic? Will those who accept it have any real safeguards? Could somebody who knows better than I please explain?
ReplyDeleteWhy strain at the gnat when you've already swallowed the camel?
ReplyDeleteWhat camel have I swallowed?
DeleteWe have this from the Bishop of Croydon who wrote on his Blog (http://clarkinholyorders.wordpress.com/2012/09/12/women-bishops-a-sense-of-hope/) after returning from the meeting of the House of Bishops:
ReplyDelete"I really really hope this [the amended clause] will enable the legislation to pass. If there was one thing all of the bishops had in common was a realisation of the disaster it would be for the church if we fail to pass legislation in November. We really have to move on – and I really hope we will. To those who fear that they will be excluded from the church when we have women bishops, I hope this will provide reassurance that they will not be. To those who fear that the legislation will pay too great a price, I hope it will also say – yes, we do want to make provision for those who are opposed, but we are doing so within a church which is unashamed of ordaining women bishops as absolute equals with men."
Reading between the lines, no doubt provision will be made but only on their terms under the guise of so-called equality making a mockery of ‘Respect’ which, as Archbishop Rowan put it, means "taking somebody else in their own terms; letting them define what they believe, what they think, who they are. It means trying to find a settlement that allows them to recognise in whatever emerges that their views have been taken seriously." Fat chance!
The real disaster for the church is that traditional believers are painted as bigots bent on discrimination when in reality they strive only to adhere to the catholic faith which the Anglican church taught for generations before being invaded by modern day secularists.