Church could think again over women

[Guest Warwick Green]

Church could think again over women, says Williams

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has reopened the debate on women priests by suggesting that the Anglican Church may one day "think again" about the issue.

Speaking a week before his first official audience with Pope Benedict XVI in Rome, Dr Williams made clear that he remained a firm supporter of women's ordination and that "practically" he did not see how the Church's position could be reversed.

But in an interview with The Catholic Herald published today, he said he could "just about envisage a situation in which, over a very long period, the Anglican Church thought about it again, but I would need to see what the theological reason for that would be".

Dr Williams said the heated debate on the issue had "tested" his theological convictions.

He did not think the reform had "transformed or renewed the Church in spectacular ways", though neither had it "corrupted or ruined" it.

While Lambeth Palace played down the significance of the Archbishop's comments, saying he had made quite clear his belief that there could be "no going back" on women's ordination, they will nevertheless dismay campaigners for female equality.

The fact that he appeared to open the door to even the possibility of a reconsideration of female ordination will anger women clergy who believe that their place in the Church should by now be firmly assured.

One senior insider said: "The trouble with Rowan is that he doesn't understand that, as a leader, his comments are going to be seen as lukewarm and hurtful." Traditionalists said that Dr Williams's measured assessment of the reform was in contrast to the enthusiastic claims of its advocates, who had predicted that it would trigger a major revival in the Church.

Dr Williams, a liberal Anglo-Catholic who considered becoming a Roman Catholic in his youth, admitted that the painful divisions that followed the 1993 decision by the General Synod to ordain women had tested his conviction that it was the right thing to do.

He said that his own view rested on the theological conviction that a baptised man and a baptised woman related to Jesus Christ in the same way, so that either could be called to ministry....

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml...6/npriest16.xml

[Charles Anthony]

Imagine the fun an Anglican parish would have when an Anglican Woman Priest married to an Anglican Man Priest wants to get divorced. Part of me thinks that their ministry might suffer.

[Guest Warwick Green]

Imagine the fun an Anglican parish would have when an Anglican Woman Priest married to an Anglican Man Priest wants to get divorced. Part of me thinks that their ministry might suffer.

Saw a story in an English paper a couple of weeks ago about an Anglican priest getting his ashes hauled by his assistant priest, a woman. The case in now before the bishop.