Under current plans the first women bishops could be ordained in the Anglican Church as soon as 2014, a move which has caused a deep schism between reformers and traditionalists, who threaten to leave the Church of England in droves and defect to Rome.

A group of 70 disgruntled clergy met with a Catholic bishop on Saturday to discuss plans to defect to the Roman Catholic Church and hundreds are said to be poised for an exodus to Rome.

Earlier this year three bishops travelled to the Vatican to talk over an offer made by Pope Benedict XVI inviting disillusioned Anglicans to convert to Catholicism, while still keeping tenets of their own faith.

Within the Roman Catholic Church itself there have been growing calls to allow women to become priests in the wake of the widespread paedophilia scandal.

A demonstration staged in St Peter's Square last month saw calls for the Pope to open the ranks of priests to women to renew the Church and solve a chronic shortage in ministries around the world. Women priests have been allowed in the Anglican Church since 1992.

But the Vatican made its stance clear on by comparing such actions to child abuse crimes and issuing new rules for investigating both by the same disciplinary body.

Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, underscored how the ordination of women is "a crime against sacraments," while paedophilia should be considered a "crime against morals" and both would fall under the jurisdiction of the CDF.

The organisation, which was once known as the Holy Office of the Inquisition, was previously headed by the current Pope when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has been outspoken in his support for an equal role for women within the Anglican Church. "My hope and prayer is that we shall see women ordained as bishops in the Church of England," he said recently.

"My hope and prayer is also that we do that in a way which does not so violently disrupt some of our common life and some important features of it, that we actually lose one another in the process."

The Church of England would not comment on the move by Rome. "It is not our policy to comment on the affairs of other Churches," a spokesman said.

The raft of new rules from the Vatican includes the fast tracking of the investigation process of priests accused of child abuse following widespread criticism of the Church's handling of recent scandals.

The CDF will accelerate investigations of paedophile priests and extend the statute of limitations by 10 years to 20 years after the victim's 18th birthday. It could defrock priests but would not be forced to hand over abusers to the civil courts.

Victims' groups said the new measures fell short because the investigations were to be carried out behind closed doors.

The Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests (SNAP), said the measures could be "summed up in three words: missing the boat".

"Clergy sex crimes must be reported to police and the Vatican must make this a binding policy that is uniformly enforced," SNAP executive David Clohessy said in a statement."Today's action doesn't do that."

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