WOMEN BISHOPS IN CHURCH OF ENGLAND DELAYED AGAIN

Last night I quoted and linked to the article in the Church Times noting that the draft legislation on women bishops in the Church of England is to be further delayed until after Easter. I was too tired to provide commentary to the article at the time I posted, but this morning I'm ready to do a bit of editorializing. The committee tasked with the revision of the draft legislation will not have their work completed in time for the legislation to be debated at next month's General Synod meeting. It seems to me that either something is very much amiss within the workings of the committee or that the committee was given a near impossible task to accomplish.

In my opinion, if certain bishops and priests in the CofE feel that they can't work with or serve under the authority of women, then that is their problem. If a priest is already serving in a diocese when a women is appointed bishop, then he must deal with her or move to another diocese with a male bishop. If a bishop finds it icky to have women bishops as colleagues, well, too bad.

However, it seems the Church of England wishes to treat their anti-women-bishops clergy more gently, and the committee is stalled over whether a woman bishop will have her authority in her own diocese wrenched away or whether the bishop will voluntarily (heh, heh) cede oversight of the picky priests to a male bishop. Silly, silly, silly.

What truly riles me is that as the Archbishop of Canterbury presides over his dysfunctional Church of England, he finds the time and has the chutzpah to attend the Episcopal House of Bishops meeting in New Orleans and lecture our bishops on how to be proper bishops - from what I've heard - mainly by exercising more muscle. As if that were not enough, the ABC appeared in Annaheim before General Convention 2009 to warn our bishops and deputies that passing certain legislation would strain our relationship with other members of the Anglican Communion.

So. How are the inner workings of the CofE my business? Well, it's sad to see that the mother church still functions in what seems like the dark ages in its attitudes and treatment of women clergy. But I make it my business to point out that as the ABC spends his time interfering in the functions of TEC, his own church cries out for his time and attention. Yet again, I advise the ABC to tend to his own garden, which is so obviously in need of tilling, weeding, and watering.