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Anglican traditionalists want to create male clergy enclave
By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent
THE TELEGRAPH
10/9/2004
Anglican traditionalists raised the stakes over women bishops yesterday by publishing a legal blueprint for splitting the Church of England into two parts, one with women clergy and one without.
The plans, have been drawn up by Forward in Faith, the traditionalist
umbrella group. It argued that the creation of a male clergy enclave was the only way to avert bitter infighting if women were consecrated.
The proposals will be resisted by liberal supporters of women priests, but the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, is understood to be privately sympathetic.
The Archbishop of York, Dr David Hope, the Church's most senior
traditionalist, used the foreword to the new 250-page report to urge the
Church to delay consecrating women bishops.
Another leading traditionalist, the Bishop of Fulham, the Rt Rev John
Broadhurst, said: "The choice facing us all is stark: are we to engage upon an endless war of attrition which harms the gospel or do we have the generosity and charity to give each other the space we need."
The Church, which first ordained women as priests 10 years ago, is expected to break the final "stained glass ceiling" and admit them to the episcopate by the end of the decade.
An official report by a working party headed by the Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, is due out within weeks and will include, as one option, the creation of an enclave free of women clergy.
But Forward in Faith, which claims 1,000 clerical and 6,000 lay members, is fighting a rearguard action by threatening serious disruption, such as withholding church "taxes", if it is not granted the enclave or "third province".
Its leaders said that existing provisions, such as "flying bishops", would
no longer work if women were consecrated because traditionalist clergy would not be able to swear obedience to a bishop they do not believe to be valid.
They said that they expect the backing of between 400 and 500 parishes and pointed out that a recent survey found that up to a fifth of the Church's 10,000 clergy did not believe women should become bishops. One said: "If women are consecrated and we get no protection some of us will leave the Church, but many will stay and will just be bloody minded and resentful."
Under the proposed draft legislation, which was drawn up by Church lawyers, a non-geographical province would be formed by traditionalist parishes with the agreement of their parochial church council.
The province would remain "in communion" with the Archbishop of Canterbury, so its clergy would be recognised by the rest of the Church and would carry out all their normal functions, but it would have its own hierarchy and general or "provincial" synod. It would be headed by a presiding bishop, who would have the status of a primate in the worldwide Church, but its bishops would be elected rather than chosen by the Prime Minister and they would not sit in the House of Lords.
The report, Consecrating Women?, which was edited by the Rev Jonathan Baker, the principal of Pusey House, Oxford, includes a contribution by a Roman Catholic priest, Fr Aidan Nichols, who was nominated by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales.
If the third province idea is to be accepted, it will have to be approved
by the Church of England's General Synod which will debate the Rochester report in February.
Supporters of women bishops, who have a clear majority in the Synod, will be pushing for legislation which will allow the consecration of women
without giving any significant concessions to the opponents.
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