Episcopalians Bolster Law on Ordaining Women

In a dramatic strengthening of church law permitting women priests, the Episcopal Church moved Friday to crack down on a handful of bishops who have refused to ordain qualified women in their dioceses.

The vote by lay delegates and priests at the church’s General Convention--its highest legislative body--followed a rousing farewell speech by outgoing Presiding Bishop Edmund L. Browning, who strongly endorsed making women’s ordination mandatory.

“I long ago reached the conclusion that God never intended that only half of the human race should run this world--or this church,” Browning declared to applause.

The resolution will go before the Episcopal bishops this weekend, many of whom expressed support for the measure.

The resolution is specifically directed at the church’s four bishops who refuse to ordain women, among them the Rt. Rev. John-David Schofield, bishop of San Joaquin. The others are Bishops Jack Iker of Fort Worth, Keith Ackerman of Quincy, Ill., and William Wantland of Eau Claire, Wis.

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The 2.5-million member Episcopal Church, which now has 307 bishops, made history in 1976 when it changed church law to permit ordination of women. But a year later, the church’s bishops approved a so-called conscience resolution that allowed dissenting bishops to continue to refuse to ordain women in their own dioceses, though the exception did not have the force of canon law.

On Friday, however, priests and lay delegates in the church’s House of Deputies served notice that exceptions to the law are no longer acceptable. Bishops who refuse to ordain women would be subject to a church trial. But a second resolution would give dissenting bishops two to three years to come up with a plan for ordaining women.

There was debate Friday, but the vote was overwhelming in favor of making the law mandatory.

“The issues are discrimination and injustice,” lay delegate Cynthia Salley of Hawaii told the conference Friday. “Are we going to continue to allow the treatment of women as second-class citizens?

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“Are we going to condone inequality? Are we going to allow discrimination in the name of theology? Are we going to condone injustice in the name of Jesus? Please let us not do that.”

Not all agreed, however, including 89 women priests who signed a letter calling for patience. Among them was the Rev. Carolyn S. Keil-Kuhr of Montana. She told the convention that St. Paul said patience was a characteristic of love.

“To adopt the proposed resolution is to indulge in the sin of impatience to those who clearly differ from us,” she said.

The original Episcopal decision in 1976 rocked the Christian world, causing consternation within the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches as well as among the Episcopal Church’s sister churches in the worldwide Anglican Communion, whose spiritual head is the Archbishop of Canterbury.

But two decades later, women are becoming bishops and other Anglican churches, including the Church of England, have since admitted women to the priesthood. The issue, however, continues to be a major obstacle to full reconciliation with the Roman Catholic Church, which says the church has no authority to ordain women because Jesus chose only men as his apostles.

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The fact that four Episcopal bishops still will not ordain women more than two decades after church law permitted it has been a sore point within the church.

Bishop Frederick H. Borsch of Los Angeles said it is time for the church to bring the four bishops into conformity with church law.

“We’ve been patient for a generation and I think it’s time--slowly, carefully, thoughtfully--to see that . . . we have the ministries of ordained women,” he said in an interview before Friday’s vote.