Women's Ordination Advocates Now Watching for Women bishops
Episcopal News Service. December 5, 1996 [96-1644N]
(ENI) The Movement for the Ordination of Women (MOW) was renamed National Watch (Women and the Church) at a recent meeting attended by 100 supporters. The meeting also produced a statement of aims for National Watch that calls for women bishops in the church. Chairwoman Christina Rees said that the group would be "promoting rather than campaigning for" women bishops. "Now that women can be priests, we hope that being bishops will naturally follow," she said, noting that there were already seven women bishops throughout the world-wide Anglican Communion. However, National Watch will also press for improvements in women's situations across a range of church activities, including the appointment of women to senior positions in the church. In its statement of aims, National Watch pledged itself to promote "a positive attitude... to questions of sexuality" -- wording that has been understood to include an acceptance of gay clergy. Officially, the Church of England does not accept non-celibate homosexuals as clergy.