Anglicans await key ruling

2008-07-07 14:05

London - The Church of England faced a key vote on Monday on whether to allow women bishops, with more than 1 000 clergy threatening to quit the church if its General Synod goes ahead with the move.

A yes vote from the church's ruling body could trigger an irrevocable schism in the worldwide Anglican Communion already embroiled in a divisive row over homosexuality.

Some 1 333 clergy have threatened to leave the Church of England if they are not given legal safeguards to set up a network of parishes that would remain under male leadership.

The General Synod is meeting in York, northern England, the second most important city in the church after Canterbury.

Members will be asked to back a motion calling for a national code of practice to accommodate parishes which cannot accept women bishops.

The Right Reverend John Packer, the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, will attempt to amend this motion by putting forward proposals for work on two possible ways forward.

Super bishops

One option would be for a national code, but the other would be to explore the creation of a new class of "super bishop" called a "complementary bishop" to cater for objectors.

Under Packer's proposals, there would be three "super bishops".

Packer's proposals come amid calls from a significant number of General Synod members for a delay in pressing ahead with legislation to introduce women bishops.

The archbishops of Canterbury and York, the two most senior figures in the church, are understood to favour a compromise that would avoid an exodus of the most conservative wing, The Times newspaper said.

However, they do not want the consecration of women jettisoned altogether due to the difficulties of appeasing both sides, it added.

The time allocated for the debate on women bishops has been extended to 21:00 GMT after 14 amendments were received to the original House of Bishops' motion, said a spokesperson for the church.

The Church of England is the officially established church in the country and the mother church of the worldwide Anglican communion, which has about 77 million followers. The monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, is the Church of England's supreme governor.

Divided

The church says that 1.7 million people take part in their services each month, with around one million participating every Sunday.

It has been deeply divided since the ordination by the US Episcopal Church of openly gay priest Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire in 2003.

There was also opposition to the ordination of Barbara Harris as the US church's first female bishop in 1989.

For the conservatives, such practices cast doubt on the interpretation of Christianity's sacred text the Bible and the fundamental tenets of faith for followers of Anglicanism.

The English church broke off from Rome in 1534 under king Henry VIII, over its refusal to grant him a divorce from his first wife.

- AFP