THE P RTAL
December 2013
Women in the
Episcopate
Page 7
Anglican
News
Anglican News
from The Revd Paul Benfield
T
he Steering
Committee for Draft
Legislation on Women in the Episcopate
published its report on 25th October. The Committee
consisted of 15 members, five of whom had voted
against the last legislation in November 2012. The
report had the support of thirteen members while
two (of whom I was one) abstained.
a package of four documents
The Committee proposes a package of four
documents, the contents of all of which will be known
and agreed before final approval of the legislation to
allow women bishops in the Church of England, thus
avoiding the difficulty of the last legislation where
the Code of Practice had to be agreed after the main
measure was passed.
The four documents (which must be read together)
are a Draft Measure, a Draft Canon, a Draft House
of Bishops’ Declaration and Draft Regulations for a
Dispute Resolution Procedure. The basis of the whole
package is the ‘five guiding principles’ which are set
out in the Draft House of Bishops’ Declaration:“The House reaffirms the five guiding
principles which it first commended in May
2013 when submitting legislative proposals
to the General Synod for the consecration of
women to the episcopate. They need to be read
one with the other and held together in tension,
rather than being applied selectively:
• Now that legislation has been passed
to enable women to become bishops,
the Church of England is fully and
unequivocally committed to all orders
of ministry being open equally to all,
without reference to gender, and holds
that those whom it has duly ordained and
appointed to office are the true and lawful
holders of the office which they occupy and
thus deserve due respect and canonical
obedience;
• Anyone who ministers within the
Church of England must be prepared to
acknowledge that the Church of England
has reached a clear decision on the matter;
• Since it continues to share the historic
episcopate with other Churches, including
the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox
Church and those provinces of the
Anglican Communion which continue
to ordain only men as priests or bishops,
the Church of England acknowledges that
its own clear decision on ministry and
gender is set within a broader process
of discernment within the Anglican
Communion and the whole Church of
God;
• Since those within the Church of England
who, on grounds of theological conviction,
are unable to receive the ministry of
women bishops or priests continue to
be within the spectrum of teaching and
tradition of the Anglican Communion, the
Church of England remains committed to
enabling them to flourish within its life and
structures; and
• Pastoral and sacramental provision for the
minority within the Church of England
will be made without specifying a limit
of time and in a way that maintains the
highest possible degree of communion and
contributes to mutual flourishing across
the whole Church of England.”
an Independent Reviewer
A novel feature of the proposals is the introduction
of an Independent Reviewer who will be able to review
case where parishes (and in some cases individuals)
feel that they have been unfairly treated. This avoids
the need for disputes to be fought out in the secular
courts.
General Synod will decide in November whether or
not to continue with proposals along these lines.