Canadian Anglican Bishops Approve Women Priests
Diocesan Press Service. November 7, 1975 [75398]
WINNIPEG, Man., Canada -- Women may be ordained priests in the Anglican Church of Canada as of November 1, 1976, bishops of the 1.2 million member Church decided on October 31 in a 31-3 vote here after many hours of debate.
Only an "overwhelming negative reaction" from other Anglican churches around the world could delay the implementation of the General Synod's overwhelming approval of the principle of women priests last June and the bishops' ten to one action to proceed.
Unless there are negative reactions, at least eight women deacons are expected to be ordained priests in the Canadian church in November 1976.
Some of the Canadian bishops had wanted to delay the decision until the next meeting of the Lambeth Conference of the world-wide Anglican Communion in London in 1978, or at least until after the Anglican Consultative Council's March 1976 meeting in Trinidad.
In an interview, Archbishop Edward W. Scott noted that other branches of the 46.7 million - member Anglican Communion -- notably the Mother Church of England, Jamaica, and New Zealand -- have approved the ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopate in principle, but have delayed implementing the decision.
Two women were ordained Anglican priests in Hong Kong in 1971, another one later.
In the Episcopal Church in the U.S.A., a member-church of the Anglican Communion, 15 women and five bishops have been enmeshed in a controversy over two disputed ordination services in 1974 and 1975. The General Convention, the bi-cameral legislative body of the Episcopal Church, is expected to consider the issue of ordination of women to the priesthood at its triennial meeting in Minneapolis/St. Paul in September 1976. The Convention's House of Deputies has twice (1970 and 1973) defeated proposals that would have explicitly admitted women to the priesthood and episcopate, while the House of Bishops has twice (1972 and 1974) affirmed such ordination in principle.