General Convention will Face 'the Limits of Ambiguity' on the Ordination of Women

Episcopal News Service. June 15, 1994 [94122]

Jan Nunley

Just because the Church of England has now ordained hundreds of women to the priesthood doesn't mean the subject is closed in the worldwide Anglican Communion -- or in the Episcopal Church, for that matter. Far from it, in fact. The controversy that started more than 20 years ago is certain to flare up again at this year's 71st General Convention in Indianapolis, as both traditionalists opposing and advocates of ordained women's ministries seek a once-and-for-all ruling on the matter.

Over the past year, the Episcopal Women's Caucus (EWC) has been building a case against the so-called "conscience clause" -- actually a statement adopted only by the House of Bishops in 1977 -- which allows for "conscientious objection" to women priests and bishops by Episcopalians. The caucus has been gathering the stories of women who say they have been locked out of access to ordination and other significant positions by the invocation of the conscience clause in their dioceses or parishes.

EWC, along with the Executive Council's Committee on the Status of Women, plans to push for the conscience provision to be rescinded during this Triennium. "We need to look to the Canadian model," said EWC president Sally Bucklee, referring to the Anglican Church of Canada's decision to revoke a similar conscience clause 11 years after it was passed in 1975.

Bucklee said she's been in dialogue with officials of the traditionalist Episcopal Synod of America (ESA), whose bishops plan to submit a "Call for a Clear Stand" resolution which, if approved, would make acceptance of ordained women a requirement of canon law -- in effect, forcing General Convention to accept or reject the traditionalists' position.

Time to fish-or-cut-bait?

The call to "fish-or-cut-bait" on women's ordination in the American church comes at a time of increasing acceptance for ordained women worldwide. Currently, more than half the provinces of the Anglican Communion have approved the ordination of women priests, including the Church of England. There are now five women bishops -- Diocesan Bishops Penelope Jamieson of Dunedin (New Zealand) and Mary Adelia McLeod of Vermont, and Suffragan Bishops Barbara Harris of Massachusetts, Jane Holmes Dixon of Washington, and Victoria Matthews of Toronto (Canada). Of the eight American dioceses which have not yet ordained women, three are willing to do so and the remaining five, including the ESA dioceses, will ordain women as deacons. Defections by opponents of women's ordination to other Christian churches, such as the Roman Catholic Church, seem to be leveling off. So why push the issue now?

Traditionalists claim they are being persecuted -- and they are angry. "Over the years, while we have been told that the legislation concerning women's ordination is permissive, we have found a number of instances being reported to us of people being denied ordination or denied access to the process, because of their traditional position on the issue," explained the Rev. Samuel Edwards, executive director For some women in those dioceses whose bishops invoke the "conscience clause," not being able to exercise ordained ministry -- or to experience the ordained ministry of other women -- is a painful omission in their lives. In April 1993, during the consent process for Bishop-elect Jack Iker in the Diocese of Fort Worth, lay leader and writer/columnist Katie Sherrod addressed a strong condemnation to church leaders of what she termed "hypocrisy, cowardice and mendacity" in the continuing use of the "conscience clause." "Presiding Bishop Browning's passion for inclusion has created in Fort Worth an Episcopalian South Africa, a fiefdom for traditionalists where a terrible apartheid is practiced -- not along lines of color, but along lines of belief," wrote Sherrod. "From where I stand, folks, this looks not so much like inclusion as it does a sell-out."of the ESA. "We thought it was time to clarify that.

There are tensions even for those women priests who have moved to dioceses which ordain and license women. The Rev. Lauren Gough, rector of St. John's/Broad Creek in Port Washington, Maryland, is a Fort Worth native who celebrated the Eucharist there in a controversial service spearheaded by women in the diocese who don't agree with the ban. "I can't really do any ministry within my own family, such as baptizing my great-nieces and nephews, and my own family cannot hear me preach or see me celebrate," she said.

'Ontologically impossible'

And for the church's women bishops, the "conscience clause" puts them in a House of Bishops that is not unanimously convinced they even belong there. "Obviously I'm not recognized as a bishop by the bishops who say that women cannot be ordained. I'm not valid for them, I'm 'ontologically impossible' -- that's the language that's used," said the Bishop Jane Holmes Dixon of Washington. "Yet I have polite conversations with some of the bishops who don't recognize me. One evening Mary Adelia [McLeod, bishop of Vermont] and I had a very interesting conversation with a number of the ESA bishops. I think most of the people in that room were dumbfounded. You live with the ambiguity."

The opposition to ordaining women in the Episcopal Church began before the 1976 revision of canon law which opened the door, but stepped up its efforts as soon as the last vote for ordination was cast. Immediately following the revision to Canon 11I.9.1, traditionalists broke into two groups -- one which left the church and organized into small splinter denominations sometimes known as the "continuing churches," and the other which coalesced as the Evangelical and Catholic Mission, later to become the ESA.

Then-Presiding Bishop John Alin offered to resign, declaring to the House of Bishops in 1977 that he couldn't support the ordination of women. Moved by his offer, the bishops -- who had previously tabled a similar resolution -- issued a "Statement of Conscience":

... we affirm that no bishop, priest, deacon or lay person should be coerced or penalized in any manner, nor suffer any canonical disability as a result of his or her conscientious objection to or support of the 65th General Convention's action with regard to the ordination of women to the priesthood or episcopate.

The "Statement of Conscience" -- mislabeled the "conscience clause" as a kind of shorthand -- paved the way for continued resistance to ordained women by traditionalist bishops, clergy and laity who didn't want to leave the Episcopal Church, whether out of loyalty or concern for their livelihood. (The House of Bishops voted to ask that pensions, insurance and health benefits for dissenting clergy who remained in the church be continued "as far as possible and appropriate.") At the 1988 General Convention, traditionalist congregations won the right to have "episcopal visitors" to baptize, confirm and celebrate the Eucharist in case their bishop was female. But most in the church expected that to be a long way off.

A church within a church

The election of the Rev. Barbara Harris as suffragan bishop of Massachusetts in September of 1988 took many traditionalists by surprise. "The final crisis of the Episcopal Church is upon us," declared the Evangelical and Catholic Mission, as it called for a "synod" in Fort Worth, Texas, in June 1989 -- just four months after Harris' consecration -- to consider the traditionalists' next move. Rumors of possible schism were in the air at the huge Southern Baptist church where the meeting took place, but in the end the delegates only voted to become the ESA -- a "church within the church," and to provide its own "episcopal visitors" service to traditionalist parishes in dioceses which ordained women, with the diocesan bishop's consent.

Later that year, at the House of Bishops meeting in Philadelphia where Harris was seated for the first time, a gesture of reconciliation towards the ESA was made as the bishops acknowledged opposition to women's ordination as "a recognized theological position." ESA President and Fort Worth Bishop Clarence Pope called the statement "a monumental admission and a prescription to end the siege mentality of the past 13 years... Without question the formation of the Episcopal Synod of America has had its effect."

Similar opposition to the election of the Rev. Keith Ackerman as the new bishop of Quincy dissolved as Ackerman acknowledged that he accepts ordained women as valid members of the priesthood, but would not himself ordain women without the approval of the diocesan standing committee.

The biggest blow to traditionalists came when the Church of England followed its daughter churches in approving the ordination of women. The first 32 women were ordained in March. That same month, one of the original ESA leaders, Bishop David Ball of Albany, announced his change of heart on ordaining women. And the new bishop of Fond du Lac, the Rt. Rev. Russ Jacobis, has announced that if a qualified woman candidate emerges in his diocese, he will ordain her.

What happens next?

What happens on the "Call to a Clear Stand" resolution, or any similar move to end the "conscience clause," will determine the ESA's next move. They will meet immediately after the General Convention to consider a response. "Should the General Convention defeat this resolution, we understand that all persecution of traditionalists will cease... Should this resolution be tabled or changed in substance, and the question thereby avoided, the ESA could only understand such actions as a clear move to exclude its members from the Episcopal Church," said the explanation for the resolution.

And ESA has already approved "A Provision for the Shelter of Traditionalists," which it says will not take effect "unless and until Synod leaders decide that it is necessary" immediately following General Convention. This resolution resurrects "Province 10," the idea rejected by the Presiding Bishop in 1990, in effect making the ESA another province of the Episcopal Church.

"There would be a way of reconciling -- if the General Convention proved itself willing to innovate structurally as they've innovated doctrinally -- to provide for transfer of parishes between jurisdictions on mutually acceptable terms," said ESA's Edwards. "We seem to be wedded to this very medieval notion of episcopal territoriality, and if we could go beyond that, it might be possible that everyone would end up being satisfied. It really goes back to a pre-Constantinian notion, where the bishop is seen less as the ruler of a territory than the leader of a family."

And if not?

Edwards said traditionalists could leave for the Roman Catholic Church, one of the breakaway "continuing Anglican churches," or "stay and bear witness" -- the option he considers likely for most traditionalists.

Nevertheless, the synod continued to push for concessions. In April 1990, the ESA asked Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning to establish "Province 10" -- a non-geographic province for traditionalist parishes and dioceses. Its structure, as conceived by Bishop William Wantland of the Diocese of Eau Claire, would be loosely based on that of the Navajoland Area Mission -- a Native American diocese whose borders take in parts of the Dioceses of Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico. But Browning declared the request incompatible with the findings of the Eames Commission report on women and the episcopate, convened by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

At the 1991 70th General Convention in Phoenix, clashes over racism and the ordination of self-affirmed lesbians and gay men overshadowed virtually all other topics, including the holdouts against women's ordination. Yet the debates energized the ESA and other traditionalist groups to renewed opposition. "There are two religions in the Episcopal Church," declared the ESA. "One accepts the Gospel, the other the ways of the world." The group voted to establish a "Missionary Diocese of the Americas" to "spread the Gospel... where the present Episcopal leadership continues to suppress and persecute biblical Christianity."

That phrasing, and the ESA's "Action Plan," netted a strongly worded rejection from the presiding bishop and his Council of Advice. ESA bishops countered that their actions had been "misjudged" and that there was no intention for the MDA to become a separate church, merely a way for departing American traditionalists to stay within the Anglican Communion. In less than a year, the MDA had seceded to become the new Episcopal Missionary Church, with its own bishops.

Consent for newly elected bishops in doubt

Meanwhile, as approvals for the ordination of women priests and consecrations of women as bishops reached a kind of critical mass worldwide, traditionalists ran into a snag at home. In October 1993, the diocese of Fort Worth elected an ESA leader, the Rev. Jack Iker of Florida, as bishop coadjutor to succeed Bishop Clarence Pope, the ESA president. But a group of Fort Worth's own, the Council of the Laity, lobbied bishops and standing committees across the country to withhold consent to Iker's consecration -- just as ECM leaders had opposed consent for Bishop Barbara Harris just five years before.

But the home-grown protests failed, and Iker was consecrated amid objections and protests from supporters of women's ordination in April 1993.

But ESA leaders clearly want some kind of decision -- not another three years of study. "I think a move to study this resolution for three years would be as bad as simply voting it through," said Edwards. "In a way, certainty that goes against you is better than no certainty at all. If there's no agreement on the fundamental constitution of the ordained ministry, it's real difficult to call that institution a church in the classical sense of the word. There's only so much ambiguity that any institution can stand. An uncertain trumpet doesn't call anybody, and that's basically what we've had."