Episcopacy Panel Offers Assurances
Episcopal News Service. November 6, 1986 [86239]
BERKELEY, Calif. (DPS, Nov. 6) -- The special committee appointed by Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning to consider the ecclesial and ecumenical implications of the ordination of women to the episcopate, met Oct. 19-20 at Church Divinity School of the Pacific.
Primary purpose of the two-day meeting was to review draft statements which, when completed, will be made a part of the committee's report to the House of Bishops, to diocesan Standing Committees, and to the Primates' Working Party, appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury to gather reflections from throughout the Anglican Communion. While drafts and titles have not yet been completed, it is anticipated that the report will cover such topics as constitutional and canonical authority, developments in anglican tradition enabling the ordination of women, unity in the episcopacy, pastoral Implications of the ordination of women to the episcopate, ecumenical considerations, and the effects of the ordination of women as bishops in our life together in the Anglican Communion.
The committee also gave considerable attention to the statement of witness, presented to the Sept. 19-26 meeting of the House of Bishops by Bishops Clarence Pope of Fort Worth and William Stephens of Fond du Lac, on behalf of a number of bishops who have grave differences of conviction over the ordination of women to the episcopate.
While the committee is working on the assumption that the canonical matter was decided by the 1976 General Convention ordination of women resolution, which included both the presbyterate and the episcopate, committee members expressed a desire to find ways of reaching out pastorally to those who are uncomfortable at the prospect of the ordination of women to the episcopate.
According to committee chairman Bishop Edward Jones of Indianapolis, "as a committee members, we feel a responsibility to the whole Church, to state as clearly as possible the doctrinal reasons for such a development, and to do so with pastoral sensitivity. To the women who have been ordained to the presbyterate, we affirm our conviction that the experience since 1976 has been a positive one. To those who are troubled by the ordination of women -- whether to the presbyterate or the episcopate -- we would reassert what has been true all along, that the Church has a long history of living creatively with dissent."
The special committee plans to meet again in March and to have a final report prepared in time for September, 1987 meeting of the House of Bishops. An interim report will be made to the Jan. 26-27 meeting of the Primates' Working Party. The committee sees its work as a necessary preparation for discussions which are already on the agenda for the 1988 Lambeth Conference of bishops.
Serving with Jones are: the Rt. Rev. John Coburn, retired Bishop of Massachusetts; the Rt. Rev. Roger White, Bishop of Milwaukee; the Rt. Rev. Arthur Williams, Suffragan Bishop of Ohio and member of the Executive Council; The Ven. Denise Haines of the Diocese of Newark and David Beers, chancellor of Washington. In addition, three seminary faculty members -- Patricia Page of CDSP, the Rev. Patricia Wilson-Kastner of General and the Rev. Charles Price of Virginia -- are members of the panel. The Rev. William Norgren and the Rev. Charles Cesaretti provide staff support from the Church Center.