Wednesday, November 21, 2012

No Women Bishops in the Church of England


The Church of England won't allow women to become bishops.  The decision needed to pass in the three houses of the synod: bishops,  priests and laity, and it needed to pass with at least two-thirds of the votes in each.

It was the laity which just failed to get that done.  The vote was 132 in favor and 74 against.

The opposition likely believes that only men should wield power in the church:
It has been 36 years since the General Synod declared it had no fundamental objection to ordaining women as priests, and 18 years since the first women were ordained. But that change never won universal acceptance in the church, with a determined minority arguing that that the move was contrary to the Bible.

That group, affirming what it sees as the Biblical idea of male "headship," has demanded special arrangements to shield it from supervision by female bishops.
 My bolds.

So it goes.  Or as someone said, progress happens funeral by funeral. Perhaps the next generation gets this done.

What I rarely  write about in my criticisms of the three big guy religions is the pain.  There may be pain on the other side, too, but the pain of being declared as lesser by those who interpret the divine to you, that pain has a particular flavor.  Different and deeper than the general pain caused by unmerited contempt.

The Church of England is the official church of the land,  and the queen is its titular head.  That makes me wonder how those opposed to any "supervision" by women explain her role away.

The practical implications of this decision for the women priests in the Church of England, a third of the total number, are that their career paths don't just have a glass ceiling as an obstacle.  They have a tombstone to get through.