That’s what Justin Welby tweeted after the Church of England synod defeated a motion to allow women bishops:
What continues to baffle me is the angst that women priests evidently feel at being prevented from being bishops. Surely, as Christians, they cannot believe their worth is defined by the impossibility of being a bishop?
While I’m all in favour of “prayer & love and…. healing”, in this case, healing from what – other than an imaginary slight?
I think that anyone who wants to be a bishop has disqualified him or herself. The Anglican Communion is a mess,.this is just one more mess to add to the pile.
Yes.
Does anyone know of any female Bishops who might be described as orthodox within the Anglican Communion?
The Rt. Rev. Victoria Matthews, Bishop of Christchurch, New Zealand
I think I may have met this Victoria Matthews many years ago at my old Parish in Brampton. It was a long time ago and may very well have been another woman.
The one thing that sticks in my mind from a conversation that I had with her was a comment she made, something about “Paul at his most appalling”.
That was the closest I could come to as well. Unfortunately I heard her speak at a clergy event a few years ago and her words were clearly contrary to her reputation as orthodox. Any other suggestions?
I have always considered that if a clergyman/woman hankers too much after a position of power and prestige — such as Bishophood — they probably aren’t in the clergy for the right reasons to begin with.
From all the “advocating” and teeth grinding and whining that has been going on for many years amongst Anglican wanna-be female priests, and then wanna-be female Bishops, I very strongly question their supposed religious motivations to begin with. Would someone in this vocation for the right reasons be carrying on like this? These protestors are no different than the middle managers in any corporation who are shooting for the corner office. It’s not about spreading the Christian Gospel and serving God and thy fellow man, but about the climb to the top. I am not impressed.
Convenient mindset for ambitious men though. They get a free pass.
Not really. The ambitious men are just as bad.
I actually agree with you for once, Vincent. The sanctimony can get a little thick around here at times.
I’m pretty much in accord with N.T. Wright’s point that justice consists not in doing the same for everyone but in doing what’s appropriate for each person. Maybe there should be some kind of prohibition against Bishops publishing books once ordained, or later in their retirement. To separate the wheat from the chaff and to discourage … ambition.
Rather like health care…..
But how do each of us always know what is “appropriate,” Lisa? That’s more God’s territory.
Sounds like a nice quote, though applying it in the real world is difficult.
But we already do apply this very principal in our secular society. With things like handicap parking spots as just one example. If we are to be a caring and compasionate society than doing what is appropriate for each person is a correct approach and deserved to at least be tried.
I agree, AMPisAnglican.
Anonymous, I suggest your taking a fully understanding of the matter up with – Bishop – Wright.
— “fuller” —
Lisa, you often have interesting comments, but that statement saying, “The sanctimony can get a little thick around here” was not called for, methinks. I know I have thought that your own views expressed on this site have gotten fairly (or very) extreme at times, and then you tend to do a sudden turn to some diametrically opposed stance — as if the pendulum has swung so far to one side it can only go as far the other way — and we are left saying, “What?” That, too, is in the sanctimony camp.
Exactly.
Sorry, but it sounds like a slogan for a political party. Warm and fuzzy, but meaningless, really. Again, who decides what is “appropriate” and on what basis? I can foresee vast disagreements there. Just like going around with a mantra of “Peace, peace” is warm and fuzzy — and who could disagree with it? But how, exactly, do we get there?
The question right here is whether women priests are “appropriate,” and I think you can all tell that there are a variety of differing opinions on what that may be.
Such self-seeking people always reveal themselves. Does anyone remember “nolo episcopari” (“I don’t wish to be a bishop”), once expected of all candidates?
Not a single one of these priestesses or their supporters cares for anything but themselves, as far as I can tell.
I know many female presbyters who go quietly about their vocations day by day. They far outnumber the whiners (and are as annoyed by them as you are), they just don’t make the headlines.
Oh no no no. They’re women and they’re priests, so obviously they’re only in it to make a point. I’ll even call them priestesses because that sounds odd in a Christian context and it’ll make my disapproval clear while letting me keep some of my dignity. 🙂
Vincent, many of these “priestesses” prove on a regular basis that they are in it only to make a point, and a rather prestigious career. There may well be honest, God-serving women out there being ordained too, but even the Church itself seeks out the overtly feminist types who want to make an issue of it more than they want to spread the Gospel. They are building a political platform for their cause. Pardon me for saying so, but I have a great deal of trouble trusing that today’s women priests are in that role for the right reasons. Rightly or wrongly, their motivations have become suspect.
Being a priest in the Anglican church is a prestigious career? Surely you jest. 😀 In any case, I prefer to assume the best of people unless they really give me cause to wonder. And wanting to be a priest or indeed a bishop while lacking testicles is just not something that leaps out at me as nefarious.
It’s true. Priests, on the other hand, are never vain of their positions.
Man, I thought _I_ had a good deadpan. 😀
I see correlations here with the great rush of female students who signed on for Engineering programs when I was an undergrad. It was the fashionable thing to do if you wanted to show that you weren’t being pushed around……you were a feminist!
Only, many of them were not cut out for it. Their hearts and minds weren’t really in it (cue for feminist readers to scream at me here). Many quietly dropped out. Many others completed Engineering just fine, but then went into extremely different walks of life in their adult years.
A friend of mine who was an engineering grad opened a flower nursery, saying that she had proven herself to the Sisterhood, and now she would do what she really wanted. Two other female Engineering grad friends are Math teachers in middle school, and never really had any other intentions. They needed to do the cool, “I am a feminist” thing, however. It was all for show with many such grads. I knew male students who were not cut out for it either, lest the predictable comments appear in reply to this.
IT IS A TYPE OF INDIVIDUAL THAT IS BEST-SUITED TO THIS PURSUIT, and not particularly a male or particularly a female.
Same goes for Anglican priesthood. So if the female priests are in it for the wrong reasons, I would not support them any more than I would support males priests in it for the wrong reasons. It just seems to me that these days there is an awful lot of jumping-on-the-bandwagon being done by women in the Church attempting to make a political point. Perhaps, like my friend in university, many will go off and start gardening shops instead, when they do not make it to Bishophood. Remember, there may be many openings for priests, but few for Bishops, so the numbers are going to be necessarily limited anyway.
And by the way, Vincent, though Anglican priesthood may not be a highly-remunerated position, some play their cards right and make awfully good connections that will serve them well even if they don’t make it to the bishop’s throne and his not-so-bad salary. Kind of like U.S. presidents who thrive long afterwards on their connections. But perhaps those are the ones who weren’t in it for the right reasons to start.
Do not discount the fact that the prevailing fashions are encouraging many women to do such things these days, rightly or wrongly.
You raise some interesting points that I shall have to ponder.
But consider this little tid-bit.
Over the past 40-50 years the average Sunday attendance in the Anglican Church of Canada has decreased to about half of what it used to be. However the number of active Priests has remained essentially the same. What has changed in the Anglican Priesthood is that it went from being 100% men to about 50% men and about 50% women. We also seem to have completely forgotten that their is still such a thing as Anglican Nuns, albiet now considerably fewer. So what I percieve happening is that women have always been called to the service of God. In the past they answered this call by becoming a Nun. Now they answer the call by wanting to become Priests.
Perhaps we need to be reminded of this:
1 Corinthians 12
King James Version (KJV)
1 Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant.
2 Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were led.
3 Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.
4 Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.
5 And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord.
6 And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.
7 But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.
8 For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit;
9 To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit;
10 To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues:
11 But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will.
12 For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.
13 For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.
14 For the body is not one member, but many.
15 If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?
16 And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?
17 If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?
18 But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.
19 And if they were all one member, where were the body?
20 But now are they many members, yet but one body.
21 And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.
22 Nay, much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary:
23 And those members of the body, which we think to be less honourable, upon these we bestow more abundant honour; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness.
24 For our comely parts have no need: but God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked.
25 That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another.
26 And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.
27 Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.
28 And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.
29 Are all apostles? are all prophets? are all teachers? are all workers of miracles?
30 Have all the gifts of healing? do all speak with tongues? do all interpret?
31 But covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way.
Perhaps I am only a foot. For that I should be both accepting of my place and thankful for it. For being only a foot means that I am fully a member of the Body.
How does anything you just wrote not apply to men as well? Men drop out of university programs all the time. Men switch careers all the time.
But apparently, you will look at a woman becoming a priest a heck of a lot more critically than you will a man. She starts from the position of potentially being a band-wagon on-jumper :), because, well, she doesn’t pee standing up.
There are considerably more women priests in the ACC than there are bishoprics: I find fanciful in the extreme the idea than any great proportion of them underwent up to two years of discernment, went to seminary for three years, and served as curate or parish priest for who knows how long — all the while getting criticised by the hidebound sections of the Church and the parish — with the express, undercover goal of getting appointed as Bishop and prove some sort of egalitarian point. Well, I say “fanciful”, but what I mean is not quite as polite.
Vincent,
You seem to have quite a chip on your shoulder, and it appears to have affected your vision.
If you had actually thought about what I posted instead of submitting the typical knee-jerk reaction of an agenda pusher you would have seen that what God is saying in Corinthians is that we all have a roll to fulfull, and that we should be happy with the roll that God has given. In the case of women being Priests God has spoken directly on the subject and has said “no”.
Well that is what I believe, and I am fully aware that others such as Kate disagree with me. The difference between you and Kate is that you are rather quick to being rude (perhaps you are trying to evoke an emotional responce), and Kate is respectful examplified by her use of the term “Presbytery” instead of “Priest”, and I in like manner and repect refrain from using the term “Priestess”. This Christian Charity is something that it seems you don’t yet understand.
Vincent, I see the identity groups have you by the neck.
Are we still having a debate?
AMP: are you only a foot because you’re a man? Or is your status as a foot separate from your gender?
AMP: I did let my emotions get the best of me and I apologise. Are you talking about my “foot” remark? Because the other post (about the number of women in the ACC clergy) was a response to Anonymous, and the threading on this page is not always clear.
I was not aware of the Presbytery form as a way to defuse tensions in this debate. I didn’t know that the word Priest might be seen as an agenda. I don’t mind using the former from now on in such a context.
I might add that I don’t recall knowing a single female over my earlier lifetime (and I knew many females) who was hankering this badly to grow up and become a priest. I heard many honest and forthright comments about what they really wanted to do with thier lives, but clergy was not mentioned. And it was not because it was unavailable at the time. Neither were some of the other wishes I was hearing.
Now, in the past decade or two, I suddenly hear all these women professing priestly vocations that have supposedly burned in their hearts since they rolled out of the womb.
It’s just a little too convenient that the female contingent of I-was-truly-meant-to-be-a-priest types are coming out of the woodwork now that uber-feminism is so fashionable for the left-of-heart, and for the Anglican Church. Funny, that.
Reminds me of the silly situation in which there was, since the late 60s, an active put-down of marriage by the leftward-leaning and non-thinking of our society (oh…..it’s just a piece of paper….we’re above all that!). That is, until the gay agenda became the thing to promote, and then suddenly, marriage was not uncool and irrelevant anymore, it was THE thing for gay individuals to clamour after, and to fight to the death for, whether they really wanted it or not. Many did not, but hey, it was politically fashionable. It became a valuable commodity, amongst the very sorts that had denigrated marriage for decades previous to this. A complete 180 degree turn-about, when it suited their purposes.
So likewise, first the throngs denigrate the Church and Chrisitianity, and then we must give audience to the women amonsgt them who may never have taken Chrisitian matters seriously until this point, but who now claim that their only worldly wish is to enter the priesthood (and work up to Bishop).
Sorry if it leaves me a little green around the gills.
I once heard a prominent woman priest of the Anglican Church devote her whole sermon at a Eucharistic service to the “idiot Evangelicals(priests)” she sometiimes finds herself sitting next to on airline flights or in other close quarters. Much eye rolling to accompany her disdain. I thought, “But aren’t you both Christian clergy, spreading the Gospel? Don’t you actually have an enormous amount in common? Aren’t you both on the same side? What about your much-vaunted tolerance, at the very least?” I guess not. This female priest did not really see herself as primarily a Gospel Spreader, it was clear. I wonder how many actually do.
You raise legitimate concerns, Anonymous, as usual. While I also believe in the appropriate and measured uses of effrontery, I would reiterate AMP’s point we all have work to do to become more charitable and less strident.
I see error on both sides; and I can’t say I know a priest in the Anglican Church who doesn’t have an investment of ego in his profession — typically, seeing his church as a way to amplify and extend himself. The women I know [Presbyters, in deference to AMP and Kate] actually are less egotistical, but are too often committed to dubious causes.
Sadly, neither side is immune to what I think is the real problem — that of being caught up in things other than what I believe they’re there for. For whatever reason, it seems the commonplace belief among clergy nowadays is they are there to be supported by the parishioners rather than the other way around. Perhaps I am naive and it was ever thus.
Very good point, Lisa, about clergy believing they are to be supported by parishioners, rather than vice versa. I sat here nodding.
I have known some very hard-working, humble priests who joined the Church in past generations, so this criticism certainly does not apply to all. I also knew a young ordination candidate of thirty years ago who was so self-centred I asked him how he was even going to get out of bed when a sick and elderly parishioner phoned him in the middle of the night. He went on to a well-remunerated position in academia instead.
However, so very many ordinations I hear of these days turn out to be cheering events not for a new apostle of God, but for another member of some popular left-wing identity group or other who has razzed in the face of the “conventionals” and made his/her way to the heretofore forbidden Church roles. It is as if they are there for the purpose of mocking those who do not agree with them, and pumping their fists in the air like a winning prizefighter whom the odds had been against, but who has “made it” nonetheless. Pardon the expression, but they are often being ordained at least as much to “spit in your face” as to carry out an ongoing Christian role. Much like the fevered push for gay marriage.
People in the pews are thought of only as supporters of these priest’s self-esteem. Their tenure in the Church then seems to be about taking every opportunity to remind us of themselves and of their identity groups. Woops. I thought they were there to support the faithful, preach and model the Gospel, provide a moral compass, administer sacraments, and give witness to God. Oddly, these activities are all incidental these days, don’t you know.
Too many of the newer clergy nowadays in the Anglican Church of the western hemishere are mostly concerned with all manner of left-wing advocacy, and making sure that they are recognized and feted in their identity group status. Self-sacrifice used to be both common and expected, but now, the mention of it (apart from the never-ending pleas for the faithful to sacrifice financially) elicits a giggle.
A Canadian Anglican Bishop whose service I happened to attend last year made a point of announcing in his sermon that we have it all wrong…..we are not meant to be putting our time and effort into worshipping God; apparently Jesus came to earth to promote 21st-century-style “social justice issues,” and that we should be doing the same. Now that would bring up quite a few problems and inconsistencies, even from the Anglican Church’s own standpoint. I was honestly considering standing up in my pew and offering a rebuttal right then and there.
And this has been twisted into the responsibility of parishioners to support, and fall down on our knees before, the gay priests and women priests and trans-gendered priests and priests who are not WASPs. They only emphasize a few chosen identity groups though, do you notice? They are the groups that get the most press at any given time in the general left-wing world around us. In a few years there might be new de riguer identity groups, however.
Too often, to be ordained an Anglican priest today is to be expected to get up and exhalt, “Look what a victim of society I have been, but who is King of the Castle now?” and then you are to expect the serfs in the pews to congratulate you on a never-ending basis.
I hear what you’re saying, Anonymous, and I’ve done my share of complaining about these things. Unfortunately, I see the same thing — albeit in a different guise — in the orthodox/evangelical side of the Church. Priests who are so involved with promoting — their — church, they have no more time for the parishioners. It’s less readily apparent than the pc cheerleading, but targeting demographics, [subtly] encouraging a cult of personality in the priest, and otherwise going for quantity over quality, undermine nonetheless the whole idea of church.
Again, I propose a return of having the priests — to cure them of aerie-faerie causes and personality-cult ambitions and get them back [never again to roam] into a real world frame-of-mind — butcher the animals for their parishes. Together with the no-book-writing disincentive for Bishops, this should work wonders to restore proper functioning of the Church.
Perhaps the idea of moderation is in order. I refer you to Aristotle’s Golden Mean. I suppose the trouble might be, though, in defining moderation.
I understand what you are saying, as I can recall that when I attended a Roman Catholic service at one of their newly orthodox Latin Rite parishes in the States some time ago, the impression I had was that everyone in attendance — both clergy and parishioners — was terribly self-conscious about getting the outward details of the whole thing correct (all women wearing chapel veils, altar boys with not one foot out of line, congregation knowing the correct Latin pronunciations). They could not relax into the ritual of the Mass, or let anything else in, for wanting it to be picture perfect. The parish seemed to be about the promotion of orthodoxy for orthodoxy’s sake, rather than as a fine vehicle for something more sublime. It left rather a Stepford Wives feeling in the atmosphere, or as if they were putting on a demanding play with a major arts critic in the audience. It reminded me of people obsessed with the letter of the law, rather than the spirit of the law. And I thought back to the Pharisees and Sadducees.
So, you’re right. Being outwardly orthodox only for its own sake is not necessarily the answer.
I’m replying to your subsequent comments, Anonymous. The establishment I had in mind is large, suburban, low-church Anglican — indisguishible, sadly, from large, suburban, Presbyterian. The church does little with music, visual imagery or vestments of the clergy [which is oppressive over time]; so they’re hardly distracted by the physical trappings of ritual. It is emphatically Bible-oriented, but it’s as though no one reads anything but the Bible. It actively targets young people (youth and college students) and young families — nothing wrong with that —, but it doesn’t similarly seem to care about or to engage anyone outside that narrow focus. I remember as a sensitive youth growing up, one of the things I enjoyed about church attendance was having the opportunity to socialise with older people, giving me a break from my peer group and my parents. Also, people nowadays are insular and self-referential enough without taking pains to become even more so. I was starting to feel like I was being ‘managed.’ And, you nailed it, ‘Stepford Wife’ is precisely the feel of the place. It’s vocal about its mission work abroad, but — this makes me think of something Kate said –, is not so vigorous in its outreach to the poor and disadvantaged in its own community.
I am actually in favour of women clergy, in part because to oppose it consistently we would also have to prevent women from teaching the faith. No one to my knowledge has ever suggested we do that. There is a difference, I believe, between community rules dating to a time when women were not educated, and prohibtions against harmful behaviours that alienate us from God.
Part of the problem is that radicalized female clergy (Bishop Schori down south is one especially disturbing example) tarnish the reputation of all of their gender, which results in understandable mistrust.
Katherine Hancock Ragsdale of the Episcopal Church in the U.S. is another. Her twisting of Christianity is frightening.
I may be about to give up on Anglicanism altogether. I can’t find that it exists any more — you can be Unitarian or you can be Presbyterian. It’s a pity there’s been so much division, because I think entailed in the schism is a loss of creative tension that leaves both sides the poorer.
As to the idea of justice’s being not what’s equal but what’s appropriate … I attended services at a Greek Orthodox church today, and reflected on this issue of women’s ordination as bishops. Women aren’t ordained in Orthodoxy, but we are highly celebrated in the liturgy — for example, today is the Feast of St Catherine.
Something about the resurrection of conventional gender roles … there was much more to it than people are usually willing to recognise. It was a whole complex of behaviours that included everything from social dancing to this thing called manners. A man admonished me the other day for how I’d responded to him; I reminded him a gentlemen used to know not to keep the lady waiting.
We’re going wholesale in the direction away from that kind of sociability and having a social consciousness, however. In view of which, I say ordain women as priests and bishops in the hopes we get the best people to enter into the vocation — for the sake of the parishioners, not for the sake of clergy.