Draft Bishops and Priests (Consecration and Ordination of Women) Measure

Wednesday 11th February 2009

Read a transcript of the Archbishop's speech below, or click download on the right to listen [4Mb]

Last July I found myself in the very difficult and unsatisfactory situation of abstaining in a Synod vote. I did so not because I was in any doubt about where my convictions lay about the desirability of women's ordination to the episcopate, but because I found I could not in conscious endorse what was there before us in the motion that Synod considered. Equally, I did not want to reject a motion which embodied what I hope and pray for, for the life of our Church. I don't think I was alone in a measure of confusion about that. I don't think I was alone because the sense I have from a large number of members from this Synod is that they would like to vote for a motion which is in some sense manifestly and measurably 'Good News' for all of us. What concerned me about the proposals last July and the proposals as they now emerge is the question of whether they are indeed 'Good News', either for women or for those who oppose the ordination of women.

I touched on this question last July in York, saying that I rather agreed with those that said excessive, rather humiliating negotiation of one's position was not particularly good news for women in Episcopal orders, and that I would prefer to see a clearer structural solution which circumvented that. And my doubts remain. But I do want to thank the Bishop of Manchester very warmly, not only for the exemplary work that his commission has done, but also for his introduction this morning. What we were being told of course is precisely where we are in the process at the moment, and assurances were given of the fact that some of the questions still unresolved, and in some senses still 'aching' since July, were still capable of being addressed in a process that we are being asked to endorse this morning. So the question for me and for others here is - is the process of the Revision Committee going to provide an adequate space for the kind of discussion and refinement of proposals that some have asked for. I shall wait and listen to the debate and I'm inclined to think that it may do so - and I'm hopeful that it will also give us that space for what Bishop Peter has just very commendably asked this Synod to undertake.

What surprises me is not so much that we haven't yet agreed, but that we have moved so far towards something that just might command a common mind. Where the gaps remain I think will have to be teased out a bit in this debate and in the months ahead - but I still feel, as I suggested in my Presidential Address, that the essential area of unclarity or unfinished business is around how much continuity and cohesion of oversight is provided for those unhappy with the ordination of women as bishops. And therefore the question is whether something like clause 3(i) adequately addresses that - it's a good question and one that takes quite a bit of sorting out I think. Yet we are not that far from something which could be owned and what I suppose the process of the Revision Committee will make clearer for us, is whether that 'not very far' is a narrow but very, very deep gulf, or whether it is a gap between, as it were, two hands stretching to meet and waiting for some sort of spark to fly between them that will create something fresh. You perhaps may recognise an illusion there to a rather famous picture. So I'm hoping and praying that I shall be able, not only to vote to remit this to the Revision Committee today, but to vote in support of a motion for the ordination of women as bishops in our Church in due course. My hope and my prayer is that I can do that with a sense of full-hearted gladness that this is 'Good News' for everyone in some degree in our Church - because if it isn't, with due respect to those who have spoken already, I think there is something missing in our witness to one another, as well as to the world.

© Rowan Williams 2009

Back · Back to top