Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Damian Thompson: The Church of England will ordain women bishops. Get over it – or leave

By Damian Thompson

I don’t belong to a Church which makes decisions about something as fundamental as the ordination of women priests by voting in a quasi-parliamentary General Synod. But, if I did, and if that Church then prepared to take the logical step of ordaining women bishops, I’d ask myself a simple question. Will these ordinations be valid? Then I stay. Invalid? Then I go....

But if you are an Anglo-Catholic who wants to stay in the Church of England, then surely it’s time to drop these fantastical demands for oversight from a bishop “untainted” by women’s ordination. You can’t simultaneously believe that the C of E is the English branch of the Catholic Church and hold that it has been led astray on a matter as basic as the ordination of women bishops, presbyters and deacons. You don’t have to go rushing into the arms of Affirming Catholicism, but you do have to face reality – for the first time since 1992.

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