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Five hundred priests threaten to leave Anglican church over female bishops
CNA ^ | June 17, 2008

Posted on 06/17/2008 1:37:24 PM PDT by NYer

London, Jun 17, 2008 / 02:16 pm (CNA).- The Times of London reported this week that the Anglican Church is facing a new crisis with 500 priests threatening to leave if women are ordained bishops.

The newspaper reported that the priests have said they would leave the Church if the proposal is approved at the next general synod scheduled for July of this year.

Many priests said they feel betrayed by the proposal, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams and Archbishop John Sentamu of York have responded by saying they would work for a compromise rather than allow female bishops, even though both are in favor of female clergy.

Fifteen provinces of the Anglican Communion have voted in favor of female bishops, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Central America, Mexico, the Philippines, South Africa and the United States.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Philosophy; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: anglican; europeanchristians; femalebishops; schism
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To: Mr. Lucky

Have reviewed the BIG 10 and don’t see anything about no women in the “priesthood”. Anything beyond that was written BY MEN and FOR MEN....wouldn’t have even considered a women. A bit like the “Hair Club for Men”.

I’m sure that if GOD is all that we think HE/SHE is....he or she will be thrilled that HIS/HER religion has become inclusive of the other half of the population.

I’m not going to bring my girls up in any religion that treats women as less capable spiritual advisors than men.

Time to get current.


41 posted on 06/17/2008 3:50:57 PM PDT by HappyinAZ
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To: rabscuttle385

Sometimes the area under the jurisdiction of a bishop has been called a bishopric. What would it be called if the bishop were a woman? Oh, never mind!


42 posted on 06/17/2008 3:51:34 PM PDT by mathurine
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To: vpintheak
When supposed preachers of the word of God do not obey it, they are in trouble. That this is an issue is sad.

Where does the word of God preach female bishops?

43 posted on 06/17/2008 3:56:18 PM PDT by NYer ("Ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ." - St. Jerome)
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To: NYer

I did not express my opinion clear enough, sorry. Female Clergy is a big no-no. There is a place for women in the Church, it is clearly not in a pastors role.


44 posted on 06/17/2008 4:01:28 PM PDT by vpintheak (Like a muddied spring or a polluted well is a righteous man who gives way to the wicked. Prov. 25:26)
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To: megatherium; agere_contra
Perhaps Jesus chose 12 men to be his Apostles because the society he was operating within wouldn't have understood it if he put women in that role.

An interesting question. Let's look at the facts.

Jesus clearly called only 12 men to be His apostles. Judas abandoned his call; when he was replaced, as described in Acts 1, it is interesting to note that no women were considered for his position, even though there were many women who would have fit the bill as faithful followers. Instead, Matthias was chosen.

Jesus was very quick to re-figure or even dispense with Jewish customs (as opposed to essential truths of Judaism, such as monotheism, or the moral law as found in the Ten Commandments). Why not dispense with the Jewish custom of a male priesthood?

1) He showed His concern for a Samaritan woman (Jn 4:27) - Samaritans were shunned by much of Judaism of the time.

2) When the woman suffering from hemorrhages approached Him (Mt 9: 20-22) He took no notice of her state of legal impurity.

3) He allowed a sinful woman to approach Him in the house of Simon the Pharisee (Lk 7:37ff).

4) He pardoned the woman caught in adultery, showing that one must not be more severe towards the fault of a woman than towards that of a man (Jn 8:11).

5) He challenged the chauvinism in Jewish law that allowed men to divorce their wives. "He does not hesitate to depart from the Mosaic Law in order to affirm the equality of the rights of men and women with regard to the marriage bond (cf. Mk 10:2-11; Mt 19:3-9)."

6) In His ministry Jesus was accompanied not only by the Twelve but also by a group of women: "Mary, surnamed the Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, Joanna the wife of Herod's steward Chuza, Susanna, and several others who provided for them out of their own resources" (Lk 8:2-3).

7) The Gospels present women as the first witnesses and believers after the Resurrection.

Given these facts, it would seem quite natural, then, to have women apostles, and hence women priests. The fact that Christ retained the Jewish practice in this area suggests that there is more behind it than a mere custom. As John Paul II notes in his letter Mulieris Dignitatem:

In calling only men as his Apostles, Christ acted in a completely free and sovereign manner. In doing so, he exercised the same freedom with which, in all his behavior, he emphasized the dignity and the vocation of women, without conforming to the prevailing customs and to the traditions sanctioned by the legislation of the time. Consequently, the assumption that he called men to be apostles in order to conform with the widespread mentality of his times, does not at all correspond to Christ's way of acting

read more

Moreover, at least in the Catholic Church, we believe in the Real Presence of our Lord in the Eucharist. The words of Institution state: "This is my Body". Jesus was a male; hence, a woman could not make this statement.

45 posted on 06/17/2008 4:12:41 PM PDT by NYer ("Ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ." - St. Jerome)
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To: ladyjane
Didn’t a bunch of them move to the Roman Catholic church when the Anglicans decided to have female priests?

Yes. You can read the history at the following link.

Pastoral Provision

46 posted on 06/17/2008 4:18:45 PM PDT by NYer ("Ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ." - St. Jerome)
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To: Paperdoll
I left the Anglican Church many years ago

The Episcopal Church, Anglican Church of Canada, Church of England, or some other national church? Or did you leave Anglicanism altogether?

Just asking because the term "Anglican" can have different or even multiple meanings depending on context. I left ECUSA for a Continuing Anglican church, or in other words, went from Episcopalian to Anglican.

47 posted on 06/17/2008 4:59:07 PM PDT by sionnsar (trad-anglican.faithweb.com |Iran Azadi| 5yst3m 0wn3d - it's N0t Y0ur5 (SONY) | UN: Useless Nations)
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To: HappyinAZ
Have reviewed the BIG 10 and don’t see anything about no women in the “priesthood”. Anything beyond that was written BY MEN and FOR MEN.

I don't know what brand of church you go to, but you need to run away from it as fast as you can. There are cults that have better teaching than you've been getting.

48 posted on 06/17/2008 5:00:50 PM PDT by PAR35
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To: ladyjane; Kolokotronis
Didn’t a bunch of them move to the Roman Catholic church when the Anglicans decided to have female priests?

Yes, and some to the Orthodox churches.

49 posted on 06/17/2008 5:03:36 PM PDT by sionnsar (trad-anglican.faithweb.com |Iran Azadi| 5yst3m 0wn3d - it's N0t Y0ur5 (SONY) | UN: Useless Nations)
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To: NYer

The Catholic Church will welcome them with open arms.

We already have two married Anglican priests who are now ordained Catholic priests in our diocese.


50 posted on 06/17/2008 5:08:45 PM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
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To: ladyjane
Bishop Steenson’s Statement to the House [of Bishops: Episcopal (TEC) to Catholic]
Bp. Steenson's Letter to his clergy on his conversion to the Catholic Church
Bishop Steenson Will Become a Roman Catholic

51 posted on 06/17/2008 5:16:52 PM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
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To: HappyinAZ

“Have reviewed the BIG 10 and don’t see anything about no women...”

Oh, sure. Take the word of a bunch of football players...


52 posted on 06/17/2008 5:38:03 PM PDT by beelzepug ("That a-hole Bill Maher stole my tagline!")
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To: HappyinAZ

‘The BIG 10’?

That’s all that matters, the Decalogue? The precedent of the Levitical priesthood being all male doesn’t matter? The facts that the Holy Apostles were all male, and that the Son became Incarnate as a male human being, that the Church from the very beginning never had priestesses, but only priests, don’t register with you?

And how did you toss out the other 603 positive and negative commandments of the Torah, if not by the authority of the Church expressed in the Apostolic Council as recorded in Acts?


53 posted on 06/17/2008 5:42:51 PM PDT by The_Reader_David (And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know. . .)
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To: sionnsar

Is your continuing Anglican Church Evangelical or Anglo-Catholic?


54 posted on 06/17/2008 6:19:47 PM PDT by BnBlFlag (Deo Vindice/Semper Fidelis "Ya gotta saddle up your boys; Ya gotta draw a hard line")
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To: BnBlFlag
Is your continuing Anglican Church Evangelical or Anglo-Catholic?

Given "one or the other" I'd say our province (APCK) is more Anglo-Catholic, though my parish has its own position in these matters.

55 posted on 06/17/2008 6:24:43 PM PDT by sionnsar (trad-anglican.faithweb.com |Iran Azadi| 5yst3m 0wn3d - it's N0t Y0ur5 (SONY) | UN: Useless Nations)
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To: NYer
Your (7) is a good point. But I cannot get around the fact that women were in a vastly different social circumstance in the days of Jesus than in modern America: women were inferior legally and socially in those days in a way that no one today would tolerate. (We see the same social structure in certain modern Islamic countries, and we find it repellent.) Women have in the last several decades achieved great success throughout society. The arguments in the early 1970s about whether women could wear slacks to work, or whether women should be allowed in traditionally male professions (such as fireman firefighter), seem quaint now. I cannot believe that Jesus, God, intended to create a social order where women were (or were widely believed to be) inferior, since in our time, it has become quite clear that women are not inferior to men.
56 posted on 06/18/2008 5:39:43 AM PDT by megatherium
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To: megatherium
But I cannot get around the fact that women were in a vastly different social circumstance in the days of Jesus than in modern America: women were inferior legally and socially in those days in a way that no one today would tolerate.

Jesus, a first century Paletinian Jew, often went against the norms of his culture. The Gospel is one of the great counter-cultural documents, not just for us twenty centuries later, but at the very time and place the words were spoken and written. Jesus had a lot of smart and zealous women disciples (some of them pretty good contributors to boot). However he selected only men for the Twelve on which he would found the new Israel, his Church. That choice cannot have been an accident that Jesus would have easily revised if he had forseen our American Republic and its civil rights laws. Consider the following Scripture quotes.

"God created man in his own image and like. Male and female he created them and said 'be fruitful and multiply.' (Gen 1:28)

"This is the wedding feast of the Lamb, and behold his bride has prepared herself." (Apoc 19:7)

Almost everything between those two verses ties in with the theme of the divine nuptials. From the creation of woman out of man's side to the blood and water flowing from Christ's pierced side. From the espousal of Yahweh with Israel to Jesus' dramatic announcement: "Wedding guests don't fast when the groom is present." These and many more texts show what the Bible is about. In them we see the very goal of all human history unveiled: The eternal wedding banquet of Jesus and his bride, the Church.

The male priesthood is necessary because Jesus the Bridegroom had to be male. Only a male can represent him at the altar, the renewal of the great act of sacrifice by which he gave himself totally for his Bride. After talking about marriage and the mystery of human sexuality, St. Paul says, "There is a great sacrament (misterion) here. I take it to apply to Christ and his Church." The very reason God created sexuality and made that theme run through his creation and his Bible, is to suggest, to foreshadow, to signify what will endure when this passing world is gone. The wedding feast of the Lamb and his beautiful bride. read more

57 posted on 06/18/2008 5:54:39 AM PDT by NYer ("Ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ." - St. Jerome)
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To: The_Reader_David

Oh for Heaven’s sake.
Back when the churches made up the “all male club” ...women were property. Times change. I’m sure God will embrace women in the same roles as men.
Think for yourself...don’t depend on words written 1500 years ago!

Jews allow women as Rabbi...doe you figure God damns then to hell for it? Silly thinking!


58 posted on 06/18/2008 8:17:48 AM PDT by HappyinAZ
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To: beelzepug

OK...YOU made me snort my coffee this morning! Thanks!


59 posted on 06/18/2008 8:18:33 AM PDT by HappyinAZ
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To: PAR35

“Teachings” are an interesting things. 1500 years ago women were property and the “teachings” reflected it. Only men were taught to read/write...and again, the “techings” reflect that.
Times change and I’m sure God will embrace any women in the role of Priest/Minister/Rabbi.

Think for your very own self once in a while.


60 posted on 06/18/2008 8:21:41 AM PDT by HappyinAZ
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