Canadian Anglicans Ordain Women Priests
Episcopal News Service. December 7, 1976 [76377]
ST. CATHERINES, Ont. -- With a shouted affirmation, an Anglican congregation here joined in celebrating the priesthood of two women, the first of six ordained to the priesthood on St. Andrew's day -- Nov. 30 -- in the Anglican Church of Canada.
With those ordinations, Canada became the second branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion to admit women to the second of three orders of ministry and clear the way for the possibility of a woman as a bishop of the Church. The Diocese of Hong Kong ordained two women to the priesthood in 1971 and, after Jan. 1, these two branches will be joined by the Episcopal Church in the United States in breaking with the centuries-old tradition of an all-male priesthood.
Controversy attended the break-through in church policy in Canada. In Branden, Manitoba, the Anglican Ecclesiastical Province of Rupert's Land approved a resolution allowing the ordination of women in its member dioceses, despite a warning by Archbishop George F. C. Jackson, who said approval of women's ordination would divide the Church and create a new obstacle to reconciliation with the Roman Catholic Church.
The Province's Synod, in reporting that seven of the 10 dioceses had endorsed women's ordination, approved a "conscience clause" which permits an Anglican to opt out of positions "which coerce his or her conscience" as a result of the ordination-ofwomen resolution.
In Canada, many priests and lay Anglicans say they cannot accept women as priests. A manifesto signed by 300 persons last year, said: "Many of us feel it is an impossibility, in the divine economy, for a woman to be a priest. We will not be able to accept the ministrations of women so ordained as priestly."
The six ordinands were: the Revs. Mary Lucas and Beverly Shanely of the Diocese of Niagara; the Rev. Mary Mills of the Diocese of Huron; the Revs. Virginia Briant and Elspheth Alley of New Westminster Diocese, and the Rev. Patricia Reed of Cariboo.