Anglicans celebrate three decades of female priests
Graeme Morton, CanWest News Service; Calgary Herald
Published: Sunday, December 10, 2006

CALGARY -- At the time, it caused a major tempest in a denomination steeped in history and tradition.

The first ordination of female priests, six in total, in the Anglican Church of Canada took place on Nov. 30, 1976. It followed years of impassioned debate among both Anglican clergy and lay people.

Thirty years later, the role of women in Anglican spiritual leadership is both firmly established and celebrated.

Of 3,819 active and retired clergy in the Anglican Church of Canada today, some 956 25 per cent are women.

In the diocese of Calgary, which stood as one of the final bastions of an all-male clergy into the mid-1980s, women are front and centre in many of the 92 parishes that stretch from Lacombe, Alta., south to the U.S. border. the rest