Bishops' Group Eyes Ordination Aftermath
Episcopal News Service. March 19, 1987 [87061]
CHICAGO (DPS, March 19) -- A one day meeting, bringing together representatives from the Presiding's Bishop's Special Committee on Women in the Episcopate with bishops and others who had signed or supported a May "Statement of Witness" opposing the ordination of women to the episcopate, concluded on a note of hope and with a commitment to explore all possible ways of maintaining communion between proponents and opponents of the ordination of women to the Episcopate, according to a release issued by the participants.
Though acknowledging that such ordinations had been canonically authorized at the 1976 General Convention, members of the joint committee expressed mutual respect for those whose convictions have differed on this important issue.
According to the Episcopal Church's Presiding Bishop, the Most Rev. Edmond L. Browning, the March 9 meeting, here, grew out of an expressed desire of the Church's House of Bishops to avoid the possibility of a division within the Church. The joint committee plans additional meetings and is scheduled to make a full report to the September 1987 gathering of the House of Bishops, also meeting in Chicago.
The matter will also receive a full discussion at the 1988 worldwide Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops, in fulfillment of a 1978 Lambeth resolution calling on any province of the Church considering the ordination of a woman as bishop to consult with other provinces before proceeding. The process of consultation leading to Lambeth was set in motion at the March 1986 meeting of the 27 Primates of the Anglican Communion.
Attending the March 9 meeting were Bishops Clarence Pope of Ft. Worth, William Stevens of Fond du Lac, Victor Rivera of San Joaquin, Stanley Atkins (retired) of Eau Claire -- all of whom were signatories to the May 1986 "Statement of Witness" -- Mrs. William Swinford of Lexington, the Rev. Samuel Edwards of Dallas and the Rev. Brien Koehler of Ft. Worth -- supporters of the "Statement of Witness" -- and Bishops Edward Jones of Indianapolis, Roger White of Milwaukee, John Coburn (retired) of Massachusetts and Dr. Patricia Page of the faculty of the Church Divinity School of the Pacific -- all of whom serve as members of the Committee on Women in the Episcopate.