Women As Bishops? House Affirms Talks
Episcopal News Service. October 2, 1986 [86206]
SAN ANTONIO (DPS, Oct.2) -- Bishops of the Episcopal Church took steps to assure that a consultation concerning women in the episcopate that they initiated last year will get a full airing, although it may mean no woman is consecrated to the episcopate in the United States before the Lambeth Meeting in 1988.
At the last hour of their annual interim meeting here, the bishops approved a measure acknowledging "the concern of the primates for restraint in proceeding to the consecration of a woman as a bishop before the 1988 Lambeth Conference." The "mind of the House" resolution passed by a 28-vote margin after extensive debate and modification.
The resolution reiterates the position taken at the General Convention last year in Anaheim that the bishops "would not withhold consent... on grounds of gender" and commends Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning for opening up the sought-for dialogue last March at a meeting in Toronto of Anglican Primates. It also upholds the right of any diocese to proceed with episcopal elections and asserts that a Lambeth meeting itself cannot decide the issue of women in the episcopate for any autonomous province.
The issue of women in the episcopate has been implicit in the Church since the canons were changed in 1976 to admit women to the priesthood and episcopate. The issue took shape last year with the bishops' "mind of the House." That measure also asked Browning to take the matter up with the primates of the Anglican Communion.
The primates' gathering produced a statement expressing gratitude to the Episcopal Church for involving the primates and laid out a series of pastoral and theological questions concerning the impact of such an election. The primates did not formally ask the provinces that ordain women not to admit one to the episcopate, but they did set an extensive consultation process in motion and agree to consider the matter when bishops from all over the Communion gather in 1988 for the decennial Lambeth Conference.
Browning had responded by naming a committee chaired by Indianapolis Bishop Edward Jones to explore the whole issue and asked them to discuss it with the bishops aligned with Pope.
The nomination and respectable second-place balloting of the Rev. Mary Chotard Doll of Cincinnati in the election of a suffragan in Washington in late spring gave further focus to the matter, which finally came before the bishops through a conference this summer of about 17 diocesan and retired bishops in Fond Du Lac, Wis. The results of that meeting came before this gathering of the House in a paper presented by Fort Worth Bishop Clarence Pope.
In his presentation, Pope noted that "many of the bishops" of the Church had felt "excluded" by the action of the House in Anaheim and asked for a response from the bishops to their suffering. He reminded the House that these bishops had not left the Church nor taken congregations out of the Church over the issue of women in the priesthood but had remained loyal while invoking the "conscience clause" that permits a bishop to refuse to license a woman priest or ordain women within his diocese. He asked for a "mood of accommodation" saying "is there any way of laying the foundation of reconciliation?"
Much of the comment that followed Pope's address seemed aimed at seeking that foundation sought by Pope while reaffirming the Church's determination to eventually accept women into the episcopate.
Massachusetts Bishop John B. Coburn summed up the tone of the debate for the committee when he insisted that the need was for a pastoral "rather than a Juridical" response. He reminded the bishops that 80 percent of the people who left the Church for various reasons really left because they felt "no one cared about them." He added that any desire to have a "polished conclusion" was wrong if it failed to consider that pastoral element. He noted that the strength of Anglicanism was "being able to point the way, as a Church and a Communion" without requiring all parties to march in lockstep on a matter.
He suggested a resolution similar to the one that emerged after three days consultation.