Church 'in need of women priests'

The Church of England would struggle in the future without women priests, researchers claim.
English Church Census figures show that half of priests ordained in recent years were women. There were 1,262 serving women priests in 2002.

University of Manchester researchers say that, without women priests, pulpits would become "depopulated".

The findings follow the Archbishop of Canterbury's suggestion that they had failed to transform the church.

Rowan Williams, in an interview with the Catholic Herald newspaper earlier this month, said he did not think women priests - first ordained in 1994 - had "transformed or renewed the Church in spectacular ways" nor had they "corrupted or ruined it". the rest