Recently I was provided with a copy of a statement in the record of the Committee for Dialogue on Title III, Canon 8, section 1, of General Convention, which has proposed amendments to remove obstacles to the ordination of women [TLC, June 29]. The statement is as follows:

"The resolution requires total obedience to the proposed mandatory canons on ordination, licensing and placement, with the understanding that this means that no member of the laity could serve on the Vestry of a congregation, no member of laity or clergy could serve on Standing Committees or Commissions on Ministry, and no bishop could serve in a diocese, unless they would refrain from opposing the ordination or placement of women priests."

If this is what the proposed changes in Canon 8, Canon 16 and Canon 17 mean, they clearly mean something very different from what they say. If the committee means to control or regulate the conduct of lay members of the church by these changes, then it should have proposed to do so by plain language included in the canonical changes. My first problem with the statement is that it is hidden away in the committee's record from which it may be raised at a later date in case the "opposition" to the ordination of women which it prohibits for lay office holders should take place.

But what is the prohibited conduct? Does one who has been elected to a vestry lose the right to serve by casting a vote which is construed as opposition to the ordination of women, such, for example, as a vote to call a male rather than a female as rector? By speaking at a diocesan convention or at the General Convention on the subject? How are such offenses to be found out and how is the rule to be enforced in the absence of further changes in the canons?

We have not disqualified those holding unitarian convictions (or Pelagians or Nestorians) from serving on vestries or standing committees. We rely on the good sense and conscience of unitarians to recognize that the historic faith and daily liturgies of the Episcopal Church are explicitly trinitarian and orthodox. For senseless or conscienceless unitarians, we rely on the powerful (indeed overpowering) grace of our Lord to bring them around in the end. Why cannot the same tactic be adopted with those who "oppose," or have doubts about, the ordination of women?

S. Bobo Dean

Washington, D.C.