The Archbishops of Canterbury and York are to make a dramatic intervention in the long-running row over women bishops this week by demanding that opponents of female clergy are not driven out of the Church.Uh, fellas? Don't you think this new-found concern for "traditionalist" Anglicans would have been far more timely back in 1994 when you "ordained" women as priests? For once, I'm on the side of the innovators: if the liberal hierarchy in the C of E were able to contort what little dogma there is in Anglicanism to allow women priests, it's a bit disingenuous to "re-contort" it back so as not to allow women bishops. You made the mess sixteen years ago; it's way beyond fixing at this late date.
Dr Rowan Williams and Dr John Sentamu are so concerned thousands of traditionalist churchgoers will quit when women become bishops that they are to risk the wrath of liberals by calling for major reforms in Church legislation.
Sources said their statement will spell out a legal formula that will give traditionalist clergy and parishes the right to reject the authority of a woman bishop.
UPDATE: My blog buddy (and occasional sparring partner) ace reporter The Young Fogey (Serge) comments: "Try around 1970 when some pan-Anglican committee said there was no theological objection to it." Indeed, indeed and I have no reason to doubt it.
Have you noticed, though, whenever someone tries to pin down when things really began to go wrong for the Anglican Church, someone else can always provide a creditable earlier date; then someone else comes up with an even earlier date and on and on, straight back to the Act of Supremacy of 1534. In other words, things began to go wrong for the Anglican Church from moment of its inception; it was doomed from the start.
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