Episcopal Press and News
Eames Commission Struggles with Anglican Unity in Wake of Women's Ordination
Episcopal News Service. January 13, 1994 [94002]
The Archbishop of Canterbury's Commission on Communion and Women in the Episcopate, commonly known as the Eames Commission, concluded its fifth meeting and issued a set of pastoral guidelines for use in those parts of the church that continue to disagree over the ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopate.
"It hasn't been a cozy week," said Archbishop Robin Eames of Ireland, chair of the commission established in 1988 just before the election of Barbara Harris as the communion's first woman bishop. "There are those of us in favor, those from provinces which have doubts, even some who are opposed. It is a reflection of the problems we see on a global scale," Eames said at a December 17 press conference at the conclusion of the meeting in London.
Bishop Mark Dyer of Bethlehem (Penn.) said that the commission had reached a remarkable sense of unity despite differing viewpoints. Among the practical issues dealt with in the guidelines is the recognition throughout the Anglican Communion that the election of women in some provinces have followed the correct canonical procedures and should be accepted as valid in those provinces. According to Dyer, the commission also addressed the "unfortunate misunderstanding that if a male bishop should ordain a woman to become a bishop, his orders are invalid henceforth." He said that it is the "communion of the episcopate" and not the individual bishop that validates the consecration because sacramental validity never depends on individuals.
"If a woman priest or bishop is designated by her province to visit a province where women are not ordained, we have guidelines on behavior," Dyer added. "The person is to be received as someone ordained canonically and as a representative of that province." The guidelines emphasize that "we hold that the ministry of an individual bishop cannot be separated from the community that ordains and the intention of that community to ordain to the ministry of the universal church."
Dyer said that the commission was able to face its tasks "creatively and wonderfully" because it has achieved a "level of maturity beyond previous work." And he thinks that an "Anglican theological vision and method to deal with issues that could divide us" has emerged that may mean that the commission will be called on again to help the church work through "crisis issues."
Dr. Julia Gatta of the Diocese of Connecticut, the other American member of the commission, shares Dyer's view that the meeting was "a very positive one" largely because the members have developed a deep level of trust with each other and a seriousness about the tasks they face.
"Of course, things have changed quite a bit since we last met in 1990," Gatta observed. Several churches in the Anglican Communion have been ordaining women for almost 20 years and "that creates a wealth of experience to draw on," she said. For other provinces the development is much more recent and the Church of England will ordain its first women to the priesthood next spring. "And no province is out of communion with another over the issue of ordination of women," although she believes that "where there is dissent that dissent has tended to harden."
"We all realize that it is a slow process to reach consensus on these issues," Gatta added. "And we are in different places in the whole reception process." Yet she pointed out that even the Church in Papua New Guinea, which is clearly opposed to the ordination of women, acknowledges that the reception process must go forward, that the decision to ordain women must be tested by the whole church.
The Anglican Communion now has four women bishops: Barbara Harris, suffragan bishop in Massachusetts; Jane Dixon, suffragan bishop in Washington (DC); Mary Adelia McLeod, diocesan bishop in Vermont; and Penelope Jamieson, diocesan bishop in Dunedin, New Zealand. Victoria Matthews was recently elected suffragan bishop in Toronto but has not been consecrated yet.
