Church of England unveils measure to allow women bishops

Monday, 29th December 2008
By Judy West

The Church of England has unveiled the legislation that could pave the way for women to be consecrated as bishops.

After an acrimonious debate at the Church’s General Synod in York last July, the draft measure and an example of a Code of Practice, were published this morning.

“We have published our further report at the earliest opportunity to give everyone the chance to study it before debate. We finished our discussions only just before Christmas,” said the Rt Rev Nigel McCulloch, Bishop of Manchester.

The Bishop is the chairman of the legislative drafting group on women in the episcopate, which has been under pressure from both sides in the debate.

“The General Synod mandated us to draft a Measure including special arrangements, within existing structures, for those unable to receive the ministry of women bishops and to do that in a national code of practice. We believe we have achieved that by providing for male complementary bishops, as we suggested in our earlier report, and now hand our work to the Synod to discuss the drafts in detail.” the rest