Church of England OKs women bishops

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Congratulations to the Church of England on finally joining the 20th century.

(Not that I care about any church really but I look forward to a time when they bring themselves into the 21st.)

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I am astonished, because I thought they already had women bishops. I mean, in their theology, having women priests should have been the hard part, and that was decades ago. Should have been a small step to bishops. Then again, 40 years is the blink of an eye to Henry VIII.

EDIT: My mistake, it’s the ones in America who already have not only women bishops but the Archbishop as well. It’s still radical over there.

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When the first woman priest in the Church of England, Angela Berners-Wilson, was ordained in 1994, the officiating bishop reckoned it would be 10 years before the first woman bishop was appointed.

20 years on, it’s now theoretically possible. How long till it actually happens?

Actually having women bishops is the hard part. If the Anglican Church got it wrong and women cannot be validly ordained then any sacraments administered by them are invalid. There is one important sacrament which bishops administer but priests do not. That is the sacrament of ordination. Bishops can make new bishops and lesser clergy. Priests cannot. Thus if you have someone acting as a bishop who is actually not a bishop then you interrupt the whole chain of apostolic succession.

Yea, I’'m Lutheran, and we got “interrupted” about 500 years ago. Except the Swedes. It’s complicated.

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Course they can. When a mummy priest loves a daddy priest very much…

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