ECUMENISM" "
A specific proposal on women bishops is contained in the report of the work group led by the Anglican bishop of Guildford, the Rev. Christopher Hill. The Church of England is thus continuing along the road (embarked on for some time) of removing the obstacles that currently stand in the way of women gaining access to episcopal ordination. The proposal which goes under the name of “Trasferred Episcopal Arrangements” was presented in a communiqué released in recent days by the Anglican Communion News Service (ACNS) and will be debated at the General Synod of the Anglican Church next month. The proposal says the communiqué is aimed at “preserving the maximum amount of unity within the Church” and is intended to “meet the essential needs of those who could not accept that women should be bishops”. The ordination of women as bishops has been the subject of a lively debate and risks further dividing this confession, after the ordination of a self-declared gay bishop in the USA and the blessing of homosexual couples in Canada. The Guildford group studied various options to permit women to gain access to the episcopate: the report considered the option of a ‘single clause’ for individual derogations, or even the possibility of creating a third province within the Communion, though this, as the group admits, “would go too far in the direction of creating separate structures which could be seen as representing significant schism” within the Anglican Communion. The most plausible option for the group thus remains that of so-called “Transferred Episcopal Arrangements” according to which “parishes opposed to women priests and women bishops could opt, by resolution of a Special Parochial Church Meeting, for the Diocesan Bishop to request the Archbishop of the Province to arrange for episcopal ministry to be provided by a Provincial Regional Bishop”. In practice, parishes could apply for exemption from the jurisdiction of a woman bishop and place themselves under that of a male ‘regional’ bishop.
