Risking Clergy Split, Church of England ‘Priests’ Women

The Church of England broke with centuries of male dominance Saturday to ordain the first women to the priesthood, a bitterly divisive move that threatens to splinter the Anglican clergy.

Setting aside the doubts and disapproval of traditionalist clergy, the core church of the world Anglican movement proclaimed a new era of religious equality when it “priested” 32 women at a ceremony in this west England cathedral city.

Church bells rang out around the land and applause erupted when presiding Bishop Barry Rogerson presented the new female priests to the congregation. The women wept, hugged and kissed in a joyous melee lasting many minutes.

It has taken churchwomen decades of dogged campaigning to get these first female priests to the altar of Bristol Cathedral where, in dark cassocks and white surplices, they gravely promised to serve God and tend his flock.

After the prolonged soul-searching, it took the church little over two hours to seal its historic step with an ordination service featuring an all-female choir and a text altered to refer to persons rather than men .

The ceremony brings the Church of England into line with many other Anglican branches from America to Africa, which have had women priests for up to 50 years.

The ordination of women has split the church like no other issue since religious leaders, under orders from the 16th-Century King Henry VIII, broke away from the Catholic Church in Rome to found what has become a 70-million-strong Anglican communion.

The debate and heartache may not surpass the burnings at the stake that marked the turbulent early years of the church, but it has clouded hopes of an eventual reunion with Roman Catholicism and has sent dissenters back into the arms of Rome.

About 700 members of the church’s nearly 11,000 ordained clergy have said they plan to quit the English state church.

Outside Bristol Cathedral, a quiet, good-humored group of eight women unfurled banners that said “RC women next” and “Women priests yes, misogynists no.”

The Rev. Francis Brown, who traveled from northeast England, was a lonely protester outside. “Henceforth ‘C of E’ means Church of Error,” he told reporters who clustered around.

Opponents fought to the bitter end with a protest hours before the ceremony, but not a single voice of opposition was heard when the bishop asked the gathering to approve the ordination.