Women are in the ascendant everywhere. Men, with the demise of repetitive factory and manufacturing work, and the outsourcing of industry, have somewhat lost their way in the world. Men may earn more for the same work, we may occupy way too many spaces on Boards, but many of us secretly know women are naturally better professionals than we are. Women, with their superior “soft” skills, penchant for team work and innate diplomacy, are taking over the world.
The World, outside of the Church of England that is…
The notice for the right to ordane women clergy as Bishops came again to a vote in the General Synod yesterday. The Synod comprises three “Houses”; in order to pass, the vote needed a successful outcome in each of these three Houses. The Bishops approved the vote, but the Laity, sadly not. We are now in a position where the present Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and his successor, support a modernised principle that the Laity do not.
Churches, as with any other Institution, comprise their membership, and require of this membership an active, informed and participative process of engagement. How can the C of E not now be seen increasingly as the relic it is so swiftly turning into. Women deserve to be Bishops, and have earned the right, through centuries of missionary work, through outreach, and arguably their “husbanding” (not a misnomer) the Church through periods of turmoil. Women showing great clarity of purpose during recent trials of Faith. Challenges including the abuse cases littering Catholicism (can Priests now marry?) and the exodus from the C of E to the Roman church, of so many, during the original ordination of women clergy some twenty years ago.
As the present Archbishop noted: this is not going to go away. Can we wait another five hundred years for the Church to catch up with the rest of society? I’d say watch this space, yet the likelihood is, there’ll be little left to look at….
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