Several reports today of new academic research:
BBC Church ‘in need of women priests’
Reuters Women priests given “dregs” in Church of England
Press Association Women priests ‘could save Church’
Economic & Social Research Council press release Women priests will ‘save church from sinking’
I very much look forward to reading a clear reporting of this interview (and especially Archbishop Rowan’s words addressed to women priests) in tomorrow’s Daily Telegraph!
Hi Simon, I loved the “Economic & Social Research Council’s” despairing press release about women priests:
“Their congregations are often small, rural, old or liberal: the kind of churches that need nursing care.”
😉
In his book Michael Hampson puts it so well that the point at which women became priests – the big broad church achievement – was when the Church of England began its descent into “chaos”. This was because it was, to use sociological terminology he avoids, a ‘triad’ and became an unstable ‘dyad’. The traditionalist catholics were off into a Church within a Church, or out altogether, or in some corners. So a three way institution of alliances became a two way straight fight. I suggested this outcome in my Ph.D in 1989. It had been a dyad in the… Read more »
Interestingly *liberal* ECUSA, which has had women clergy for many years doesn’t seem any better than the wicked CofE. According to Louie Crew: http://newark.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/womenpr.html
In 1998, the average size of US congregations with a rector was 433, but the average size with a female rector was only 93!!!
My above comment should (of course) be in answer to the ‘RV Interviewed on BBC thread’. Beginners bad luck – sorry!
Dave wrote “In 1998, the average size of US congregations with a rector was 433, but the average size with a female rector was only 93!!!” I’m not sure what Dave is trying to “demonstrate,” but he may know little about women priests in the Episcopal Church, and seems to be trying to create an impression based upon a statistic taken wholly out of context. For nearly three years I was a member of a parish in the New York suburbs which had a woman as its rector. The reason that she was given this parish was precisely because it… Read more »
My home parish, Canadian, is rural. They have their second female priest. As far as I can see, the only problems are the usual ones that have to do with personalities and the like, the kind of thing that always happens between humans. She’s an excellent preacher, one of the best I’ve heard ever. The parish is certainly not in decline because she’s there. Dave, we know the Evangelicals are popular with the world. I guess that means you hang with the cool crowd. It didn’t bother me that I wasn’t the popular kid in high school, and it still… Read more »
I might note that of the five candidates to be the next Bishop of the Diocese of Virginia, two are women.
Opportunities for ordained women vary considerably from diocese to diocese. The Diocese of Virginia has rather a good record, but I expect there are more women rectors of small churches than large. OTOH, we are a diocese with many small churches. Most of the really large churches are in the Richmond and N. Va areas.
If women (lay or ordained) were excluded from this area, the churches could be sold and the proceeds given to the poor, for all the use they would be. Len Baynes, Staoleford Cambridge.