Church of England vote backs women bishops
Spiritual leader of world’s 80 million Anglicans says election of female priests and bishops supported by theology.
Church leaders have billed the new proposals as part of a “new and helpful” drive for women bishops after their previous attempt was blocked.
The Church of England has voted to allow women priests to be ordained as bishops, overturning centuries of tradition in a church that has been deeply divided over the issue.
After almost five hours of debate, the General Synod, the governing body of the Church of England, approved on Monday the proposal to allow women to take up senior roles in the Church.
Ahead of the vote, Justin Welby, spiritual leader of the world’s 80 million Anglicans, said the general public would find it “almost incomprehensible” should the General Synod fail to support the move.
Jody Stowell, a woman priest from North London, said supporters had low expectations that the proposal would be approved.
“I think we went through the stages of shock, through amazement to joy, which you are seeing here now,” Stowell said. “When it happened it was just amazing.”
Ruth Chapman, another female clergy member said that the vote was “very close.”
The vote comes two years after similar legislation failed to reach a two-thirds majority among the General Synod’s lay members, despite approval from bishops and clergy.
The long-running debate pitted reformers, keen to project a more modern and egalitarian image of the church as it struggles with falling congregations in many increasingly secular countries, against a minority of conservatives who see the change as contradicting the Bible.
The issue of female clergy has divided Anglicanism globally.
Women serve as bishops in the United States, Australia, Canada and New Zealand but Anglican churches in many developing countries do not even ordain them as priests.
