Women bishops: Vatican unhappy

2008-07-08 18:11

Vatican City - The Vatican "regrets" a decision by the Church of England to allow women bishops, saying that the ruling would present a "new obstacle" to reconciliation between the Holy See and the Anglican Communion.

"We learned with regret the news of the vote of the Church of England that opens the way to the ... ordination of women bishops," the Vatican said in a statement from the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

The decision will be "a new obstacle to reconciliation between the Catholic Church and the Church of England," it added, saying it would "have consequences for dialogue, which had hitherto borne good fruits".

The Church of England voted late Monday in the city of York in northern England to allow women bishops despite fears the move would prompt a major split after more than 1 300 clergy threatened to leave if it was passed.

The General Synod, the church's legislative body, held the crunch vote following a passionate eight-hour debate pitting conservatives against liberals.

Roman Catholic clergy - priests and bishops - are all male, which the Church believes obeys the directives of Jesus Christ, whose 12 apostles were all men.

A decision by branches of the Anglican Communion to allow the ordination of woman priests was already a source of friction with the Vatican.

Several conservative Anglican priests defected to Catholicism because of the move, adopted from 1984 in various branches and by the Church of England in 1992.

The Church of England, led by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, is the mother church of the worldwide Anglican Communion, which has about 77 million followers.

- AFP