General Synod: Speech Moving Motion on Women in the Episcopate

Thank you, Mr Chairman, and thank you all for an extremely probing and honest and helpful debate.

A few points by way of a general response, but first of all a general clarification. We are, as I noted earlier, asking if time will be made available for Synod to determine whether it wishes to set in train a process. In other words, at this stage we are still very much at the beginning. Much of what has been said this afternoon may be said again appropriately at later stages in the process when we have to take further decisions. I hope that in the light of that that, people won't feel that today's discussion unduly or unfairly forecloses the decisions we still have to confront.

Robert Cotton made the important point that we don't discern when we've stopped disagreeing; we discern within the process. That's the process that we're in and I hope that this motion will enable this process to go forward.

Father Houdling pointed out where some more work needed to be done on both sides of the discussion. How far are we buying into a notion of equality which, while we may take it for granted, may still have some theological questions hanging around it? How far on the other side are we buying into notions of symbolism which in fact need some criticism or expansion? I hope that's exactly the kind of work that I hope will be going on in the months ahead in dioceses and elsewhere. Though I should say that the group that the bishop of Guildford will be chairing isn't there primarily to take up theological issues as in the body of the report but to look at the more particularly at the practical issues of how we go forward.

Jenny Thomas made a crucial point about the high representation of women clergy among clergy of ethnic minority origin and, I think, stressed for us a point which we are constantly in danger of losing sight of; that there are major issues around the representation of ethnic minority clergy in our church and that this issue is not wholly divorced from that question given the demography of the clergy from that constituency that we have.

I've commented already on David Bowen's amendment and here with gratitude and appreciation his sense of the distinctiveness the call to episcopate as opposed to priesthood. Whether it has the conclusions that he wishes to draw, members will make their own judgement - I'm not convinced, I have to say.

Sheila Cameron's point, looking back over a long history of debate reminded us that in 1990 that there was an agreement that you couldn't really sustain quite such a level of distinction between ordination to the priesthood and the episcopacy is worth pondering; that's part of our history as well.

Sir Patrick made some very salient points about the practical and other difficulties in July and noted that this ought to be an election issue for the next synod. I rather suspect that it might be anyway, if I'm honest, and there is another point that perhaps ought to weigh with us just a little; that the Rochester process began with the end of the last Synod, it would be a shame if this Synod which has begun to take on board that work didn't continue it a stage further.

Christine Hardman's comments about the characteristic slapdash expeditiousness of the Church of England's methods will ring bells in many quarters, I'm sure. But she reminds us that whatever we do in voting on this and whatever lies ahead in the process our priority should be constantly 'what is it that makes the gospel credible?'

Penny Driver I think quite movingly noted that she and I suspect many others in this chamber whoa re not looking for women bishops 'at any cost' to the church but that discernment was already upon us and that God's way forward might be less clear to us than the various ways forward that we might at this stage map out for ourselves but that we had to trust something in the process and something of the work of the Holy Spirit in that. The idea that we should be modelling working with difference is I think precisely what this whole debate should oblige us to reflect on and work at.

I take the point about the representation of just one woman on the group; I think that will need to be considered further. The view from Rome is a delicate matter; but I think, as was said by a later speaker, we simply have to use our sense and our sensitivity as and when such circumstances may arise.

I would want to endorse very strongly what Dr Christina Baxter said about the fact that this is the synod that has done the exploration and therefore has some responsibility to think about the next stage. As she said, we don't bind our successors and, as I've repeatedly noted, options remain open and it's open to our successors to halt. We don't bind our successors though I hope that we can take it for granted that there is some proper continuity from synod to synod so that we're not starting from scratch every time we have a new election.

Margaret Brown reminded us very forcibly that we are of course answerable for our belief not to society, not to the House of Bishops, not to the will of the majority but to the revealed faith of Jesus Christ, as she put it in her opening remarks. I hope that there is no-one in this synod who disagrees that this is indeed what we are answerable to. Such disagreement as there is is about the scope of what that revealed faith of Jesus Christ enjoins at every point in Church order, not about the fact of revelation its priority and our call to obedience.

I forebear to comment much on the history of women's football in the twentieth century, but the question which bishop John put to us 'Have we heard enough to stop us moving forward?' puts it, I think, very challengingly. And the challenge in his words also to bishops to work out rules with sensitivity and imagination, even if not enshrined in full legislation is a very significant element in this discussion. If we do go for single clause legislation that will indeed be a challenge and that might lead people to lean one way or another on the question, depending on how much you can rely on the sensitivity and imagination of bishops, and I'm not the best person to comment on that.

I was delighted to hear David Banting's hesitation about disagreeing with the Archbishop of Canterbury ... but David's plea for sensitivity to genuinely felt conscientious scruple and his very apposite warning about the tyranny of the majority I think Synod will have heard and, I hope, heard prayerfully and responsibly. It's an extremely important point and relates to what was said earlier about what we are in fact responsible to, or rather whom we are responsible to and I'm glad to have that comment made.

And finally, Joy Tetley has reminded us that 'God's right time' is not something that we can always discern simply by totting up a number of favourable signs in the overall environment. And that's important because some of the debate has, as it were assumed that when things are going in a positive, inclusive, gender-equal way in society at large, that must mean that this is the easy, the right, the obvious time. And that can't be the argument on which we base our decisions.

'God's right times are rarely pain-free', said Joy and I think we're all very much aware of that after the debates this morning and this afternoon.

So once again Mr Chairman, I'm very grateful to those who have contributed this afternoon and those who've sat patiently and I'm sure prayerfully through the debate; I'm happy to commend to you again the motion before you as a way of beginning a particular phase of our work, a particular phase of our discernment, where we shall need all those qualities of patience and listening that have been so many times referred to in today's excellent debates. Thank you very much

I beg to move.

© Rowan Williams 2005