The Church of England Tuesday acknowledged that it could ordain the first women bishops by the end of the decade if proposals contained in a new report are taken forward by its general synod.
The report -- fruit of a three-year-long working party headed by the Right Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali, Bishop of Rochester, south east of London -- set out a series of options for the church to consider if it is to proceed from ordaining women priests, which it has done for the last 10 years, to promoting them to the episcopate.
Its findings were immediately denounced as contrary to Holy Scripture by the conservative evangelical fringe group the Church Society, but were welcomed by women in the church who have been pressing for the change.
Nazir-Ali told a press conference: "We have tried to show in the report that it is a soluble problem if the church wants to make a decision that is not maintaining the status quo. If the church decides after due consideration to ordain women to the episcopate we think it will be possible, given goodwill on every side, to maintain the unity of the church."
Although the 289-page report did not make recommendations, it sets out a series of options ranging from maintaining existing practice, to ordaining women to all orders of bishoprics, allowing dissenting parishes oversight from male bishops, and the setting up of a separate province with its own episcopal structure, parallel to those of York and Canterbury, catering only for those churches which could not recognize women's ministry or accept the authority of men ordained by them.
The report was drawn up by a working party containing a wide cross-section of views, with five women among its 11 members. Nazir-Ali, an evangelical, is one of 39 out of 44 diocesan bishops to ordain women and was the first to promote a woman minister to an archdeaconry.
The report lists the advantages and disadvantages of each option, though it makes clear that the current situation is not really sustainable because pressure will continue.
It adds: "It seems certain that, for the foreseeable future at least, acceptance of gender-blind equality of opportunity will remain a central feature of western society. This means that the church's position will appear increasingly isolated and anachronistic and there will be continuous pressure on the church to reconsider its decision ... the Church of England will not be able to commend the gospel effectively if its structures embody sexism in a way that contemporary society no longer finds acceptable."
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion