Ladies hats

So we heard last week that the Royal Enclosure at Ascot will be enforcing a stricter dress code this year.  They will be cracking down in particular on ladies hats.  Ladies attempting to enter the Royal Enclosure wearing a fascinator instead of a hat will be turned away.

Similarly, the Church of England has enforced a strict hat code amongst its clergy for some time.  Women are allowed to wear any hat except for an episcopal mitre.  The pointy hat that shows you are a bishop has been strictly reserved for men.

And next week, the General Synod of the Church of England will be meeting and one of the most important votes on the subject of women bishops.

The February session of Synod will debate a motion which could throw the whole legislation into turmoil.  So Mouse thought he would return to his blog for one post only, to set the scene for those who have not been following closely, and to plead with any Synod members who come to read this, pass the legislation once again, without any further amendments.

The issue being discussed next week is actually very simple.  If we cut away all of the legalistic complexities and opaque ecclesiastical language, what we have is a proposal which says that women bishops should only be half bishops.  The idea is that male bishops will continue as they are at present.  But women bishops, may only have "co-ordinate jurisdiction" in their dioceses.  In other words, they must also have a male bishop on their patch who can oversee parishes who cannot accept women bishops for theological reasons.

The current draft of the legislation proposes that women be made bishops on the same terms as men, but that all diocesan bishops must make provision for traditionalist parishes by allowing another (male) bishop to oversee them.

There has been much debate about the strength of the "code of conduct" which sets out the requirements for such provisions to diocesan bishops.  The draft of this code makes clear its legal status.  It is a statutory code, and failure to abide by it will leave the bishop concerned open to legal challenge by judicial review.  Be in no doubt that this requirement is binding and cannot simply be ignored by those who are not sympathetic to the traditionalist cause.

One is left wondering why these arrangements are not acceptable for opponents of women bishops.  Particularly so for the conservative evangelicals.  Their issue relates to the role of women in the church.  They believe the Bible requires "male headship" within the church.  For them, Mouse cannot see any reason to split legal hairs over the precise formulation by which alternative bishops may provide oversight.

Their principle concern has, in fact, been that women bishops may be reluctant to put forward conservatives for ordination.  The Archbishops have made clear that there will be no discrimination on theological grounds like this, whether the provision for opponents comes by "co-ordinate jurisdiction" or by a code of conduct.

For the Anglo-Catholic wing of the church, what appears to be semantic legalities to most of us, are in fact important differences of principle.  Some Anglo-Catholics do not accept that women can be bishops, whatever the General Synod says, and will not recognise them as holding valid orders when they are finally appointed.  Whilst many of us are not particularly bothered who our bishop is, and consider our local vicar to hold sufficient authority in their own right to baptise, say the eucharist and conduct other vicarly business.  For the Anglo-Catholic, however, these things are all done by the parish priest under the delegated authority of the diocesan bishop.  Any problems there, and the whole diocese falls apart.

Anglo-Catholics also have concerns about muddying the waters of ordination.  The fear is that the direct line of ordinations from St Peter to your local parish priest will be broken.  The theory goes that for anyone who does not hold valid orders (like a woman, for example) to conduct an ordination would be invalid.  Once that happens, confusion will reign as we try to identify validly and invalidly ordained priests.  And imagine if some of the men who were ordained by a woman bishop themselves become bishops.  We won't even be able to tell who isn't really a valid priest by checking their chest region and footwear.

Yet, Mouse cannot accept that "co-ordinate jurisdiction" is the answer here.

It takes only a cursory reading of the gospels to spot that Jesus had serious issues with those who had allowed their religious life to become legalistic.  And here we are discussing whether provision within the measure itself or a statutory code of conduct provide an adequate legal framework for traditionalist priests to continue to do what they do every day of the week already.

However, Mouse isn't seeking to convince anyone of his own position on these issues.  For what it is worth, Mouse considers it nonsense to suggest that a priest's ministry becomes invalid because his boss in the diocese changes. Or that it is credible to suggest that no single bishop between St Peter and today's crop have invalidated their orders, so the purity of the line is already broken.  Mouse does not believe that ordination is valid because of the purity of the person laying on their hands.

The purpose of this post is to point out what will happen if the proposal for "co-ordinate jurisdiction" is passed next week.

In the first instance, it will put the House of Bishops in a real pickle.  You see, General Synod has no power to amend the legislation at this stage.  The vote will merely be one requesting the House of Bishops to make the change.  Which will put them in a difficult position.  If they refuse and continue with the unamended legislation, then the vote in July is likely to reject it. Synod will have already expressed its dissatisfaction with the drafting, and everyone Mouse speaks to who is close to Synod tells him that the vote is on a knife edge already.  Rejecting the legislation in July would allow it to be redrafted with this new provision included, pushing the issue out by another two, three or four years.

If the House of Bishops decide to amend the legislation as requested, this will require it to once again pass through the dioceses, pushing the issue out by another two, three or four years.  However, the supporters of women bishops are threatening to vote against it if it does not provide for women bishops on equal terms with male bishops, so this would not be straightforward.

Either way, we won't make progress for a number of years.

And here's the rub.  Mouse is asking those considering their position on the vote what the impact will be on the Church of a rejection of this legislation.

The proposal being put in February goes just a hairs breadth further than the current proposal, but at the cost of making women bishops a second class of bishop.  So Anglo-Catholics must consider the extent to which they are prepared to dig in and fight, and how much collateral damage they are prepared to inflict, for a near identical compromise to the one already on the table.  Conservative Evangelicals must consider why it will make any difference to them at all.

If you thought the PR caused by the appearance of a tented protest at St Paul's was bad, then just imagine the impact of General Synod voting down the legislation on women bishops.

We have been on the course of admitting women to the episcopate for so many years that to cock the whole thing up now would be a total disaster.  The legislative process has so far managed to get General Synod and 42 Diocesan Synods to agree on a position.  There is a reason why Synod does not have the power to amend legislation now - it has already been through Synod.  For the legislation to be changed now would be an abuse of process which would inevitably be seen by the world at large as a wrecking act from traditionalists at the expense of the wishes and desires of the overwhelming majority of the church.  This would be disastrous for the cause of evangelism and mission in England, as the rest of the country would be left wondering what planet the Church of England is on.

It has been the clearly expressed will of General Synod and Diocesan Synods that women be admitted to the episcopate on the same terms as men, with graceful provision for those who cannot accept this.  Those who are being offered graceful provision should accept it gracefully.

For the good of the gospel in this country, Synod members must vote against the proposal to reintroduce the Archbishops' amendment for "co-ordinate jurisdiction".