500 churches in C of E still ban female priests
by Nicholas Hellen, The Times:
An internal Church of England report has revealed that 500 of its churches are operating a male-only policy for priests, five years after it had agreed to the ordination of female bishops.
Individual churches are permitted to request male incumbents on theological grounds under a 2014 agreement, the Five Guiding Principles, that was intended to avert a breakaway by conservative evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics.
[…] This weekend there are signs that the compromise is fraying in Wales as well as in England. On Thursday the Church in Wales will consider whether to stop ordaining those who refuse to accept female priests.
It will consider a motion from Peggy Jackson, archdeacon of Llandaff, not to hold separate ordination services for any candidates and to “cease to ordain those who [refuse] the sacramental ministry of women”.
The Church Society, the leading conservative evangelical group, said that in England the “credibility and fairness” of the compromise had been “sorely tested”.
“It is our prayer that the Church of England will avoid that kind of provocative imposition. Though we have lots of women bishops now, there isn’t a single conservative evangelical diocesan bishop and no ordinary suffragans who act in accordance with the traditional view.” The July meeting of the General Synod will consider whether the compromise is working.
Susie Leafe of Gafcon UK, a traditionalist Anglican body, defended the right for a church to have a male-only policy for the incumbent priest.
“At heart it is because they, along with the vast majority of Christians over the past 2,000 years and in the world today, believe the church is a family where men and women are equal and not interchangeable,” she said.
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