It seems to me that since the appellant tribunal declared that women could be bishops, several people have interpreted this as "We must have women bishops" and this is degrading to all women because they have only been appointed because they are women and not because they are necessarily good priests. Just because someone can be a Bishop does not mean that they should be.

Wow! Excellent!

How do you know, Mark? Given that you don't agree with women's ordination, your view is not exactly worth considering as it would apply equally to any woman.

Mark Wharton "they have only been appointed because they are women".

Hogwash. It is perfectly credible that suitable women candidates have existed for some time, only prevented from becoming Bishop by canonically enshrined prejudice. Or perhaps you have some evidence to support your nuanced slur on Barbara Darling's ability?

Mark
are you talking about any particular case here? Are you in the privileged position to know whether a particular bishop was appointed because she is excellent or for political reasons?

If so, you should make this evidence public.

Oh Mark, come off it, what a miserable whingy thing to say. The degrading thing is that the C of E is still keeping women out.

Of couse Mark you have no problem with bishops who have been appointed because they are men....

Mark, you got all emotional, sensitive and defensive my (admitted) attacks on this subject five days ago. Why do you open yourself up for this by making blanket statements about somebody whom you don't know at all and have no idea of their qualifications, other than the fact they're female?

There are some sexual serious issues here Mark, and it ain't some bishop elect in faraway kangaroo land.

I think Mark may have a point, but I don't see any reason to believe that Barbara Darling was appointed simply because she was a woman.

So? Hmmm I suppose the same notions apply to VGR being elected in New Hampshire, i.e., that the diocese discerned him because he was gay? A silly USA affirmative action thang gone waaay wrong?

Hard to credit, actually. One suspects, always open to evidential correction, that many capable women and gay men or lesbians have served long and hard in church life - with the closet being the typical hard rule for gay men/lesbian believers more often than not in a good many provinces - and that, based on evidence, they are discerned despite the trash talk and mistreatment that tends to follow them everywhere, categorically.

In any case, warm welcome to Bishop Darling. We will be better off as a Jesus community when our leadership reflects us/embodies us demographically, presuming otherwise high education, training, and that mysterious mystical thang called pilgrimage which we can never finish knowing - our calls from God to witness, worship, and serve.

Just because ancient near eastern tribal cultures failed to recognize that women were called to something besides motherhood and subservience is hardly still a cogent or compelling reason that we must as Jesus believers follow suit, ever so strictly.

I sometimes cannot help but wonder: How do such believers with such a strong distaste for/suspicion of God at work in women among us - except for gestation and parturition? - actually deal with their mothers or sisters or the highly educated professional women on their research or other work teams?

If Jensen and Akinola and Venebles and Gomez and a rather large subgroup of tending towards trash talk men bishops who currently lead/speak out the conservative realignment campaign can be part of the worldwide communion no matter how narrow and strict their views may be, then surely Darling and Jenny Te Paa and Jefferts Schori are part of us too.

Of course every person appointed to a post is appointed because they are the person they are - that's trivial and not worth saying.

It is when they are appointed (wholly or in part) because of what/who they are not that the questions have to be asked.

Personhood versus irrelevant circumstances ; = )

It really makes me sick, when Cardinal Kaspar tells the Church of England not to proceed with women bishops , when there are now 17 in the Anglican Commiunion, all invited to Lambeth.

10 TEC,
1 NZ
2 Australia
1 Cuba
3 Canada

Hold your head in shame, Kaspar

ARCIC should be renamed

CEARIC ( CHURCH ODF ENGLAND ANGLICAN ROMAN CAYTHOLIC COMMISSION)

Have any of you noticed how Anglicam Mainstream are now coming out as anti-women bishops?

"they are appointed (wholly or in part) because of what/who they are" -- o masters of weasel-word rhetoric, study these beauts: "wholly or in part" and "what/who"!

Spirit of Vatican II

It is amazing what you can do by leaving the word 'not' out of a quotation.

Cardinal Kasper in an immense theologian, pastor and priest; the disregard which has been shown to his comments with regard to women Bishops is atrocious. Some of you may wish to live with sociological theology and impaired communion but many Anglicans who do "think" do not, and our right to live within the Church catholic must be protected. Cardinal Kasper was INVITED to give his thoughts and the Anglican Church should have the grace to listen to him, not simply dismiss him. We should have the courage as Anglicans to admit anyone who is ordained without the consent of the universal Church is not ordained and cannot image the perfect unity because Jesus Christ and the Bride which is his Church.

Nonsense, Mark. The Anglican church, or any other church, can do as it wishes - otherwise one is forced to change nothing unless everyone agrees. A surefire recipe for atrophy.

If you don't like women bishops, then what is stopping you joining a part of the church which rejects them - you can't forever hold back those who want to move forward, not be held back by reactionaries.

HOW CAN YOU HAVE UNITY WITH A CHURCH WHICH HAS 2,500 women priests? Or with a Communion which has 7,000 and 17 bishops.

Is this not an obstacle to unity?

The Roman Catholic dialogue is with the Anglican Communion and not with the Church of England.

The pope goes on about relativism...however Cardinal Kaspar suffers from " self deceptionism." There will never be corporate re-union between Anglicanism and the Roman Catholic Church.

The choice is simple: either one is an Anglican or a Catholic Christan. It is time to decide!

Mark and Robert:

Because you are both Roman Catholics (I assume this, am I right?), you take the position that the RC is correct in forbidding women's ordination and consecration. Around the world, millions of other Christians--Anglicans, Methodists, Lutherans, and others--disagree. They believe the Spirit has spoken to them in this matter.

Mark Wh (too many Marks on this thread!): but the RC Church believes that none of our bishops are "real" bishops; and that none of our priests are "real" priests either. So why on earth should we worry whether some of us are "less real" than others?

Fr. Mark
It must be the goal of all Anglicans to return to Rome and to elect a person who cannot be a symbol of unity is to dismiss a historic and vital part of the episcopate.
On the matter of the validity of orders, point taken, but be aware that there are many Anglicans who doubt the validity of women priests’ orders and this is a very serious issue in any Church. Now Australian Anglicans have another problem; what about the men she ordains? Are they Priests?

I support women in the Anglican episcopate and believe that they should have unequiviocal recognituion within their own household of Faith. i believe that FIF should do the honest thing and either leave for Rome or found their own sect. However their congregations would be so small they could never support its clergy.

I believe that the C OF E with an unequivovcal stance will serve ecumenism for better, as corporate re-union was never a serious proposition. That is why I am so disgusted at Cardinal Kaspar's ridiculous thesis.Anglicans are not going to give up their contraception and divorce.

"It must be the goal of all Anglicans to return to Rome..."

Says who? I suggest that it ill behooves anyone not of a particular denomination to start setting goals for that denomination.

How would you like it if I said, "It must be the goal of all Roman Catholics to return to Constantinople....?"

Robt Ian W is right: we are not going to give up being liberal on contraception and divorce (I hope!); nor on women or gays. One day, who knows, perhaps the RC Church will be grateful we pressed ahead on those things, before it withers away itself in Europe.

"It must be the goal of all Anglicans to return to Rome..."

Eh... no!
Unity can only happen if the two churches meet as equal partners and a truly unified church is created.
One side simply "returning" to another is not goign to happen. Nor should it, to my mind, be anyone's goal.

"It must be the goal of all Anglicans to return to Rome"

Why? As long as the Bishop of Rome continues in his unCatholic claims to be King of the Bishops, I see no reason whatsoever to "return" anywhere. The Kingdom of God is not ruled from Rome, nor Constantinople, not Canterbury, nor Geneva. I have great respect for the office and variable respect for the men who occupy it, but the idea that any one bishop can lord it over all the others is not part of the Catholic faith. Just because Rome has been saying it for centuries doesn't make it true. It's as wrong now as it was when Constantinople lost patience 1000 years ago.