Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Women win bloody battle at the Synod

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/07/08/do0807.xml

[Telegraph] 9 Jul 2008--Make no mistake, the Anglo-Catholics were done over at the General Synod in York in the debate over women bishops. This being the Church of England, their humiliation was accompanied by lots of hand-wringing, a good deal of guilt and a late attempt to stop the beating entirely, when the Bishop of Durham intervened like a worried boxing referee.

But it was bloody just the same. After nearly eight hours, all that the Catholic Conscience had to show for its pains was a motion that now indicates that it is the wish of a "majority" of the Synod for women to be bishops and the word "statutory" now stands in front of the proposed code of practice.

No structural provisions, no special arrangements, no statutory transfer, no flying bishops and certainly no super-bishops. I had thought that super-bishops were just flying bishops with special powers ("Is it a bird? Is it a plane?") but it doesn't matter what they are, because the Catholics can't have them anyway.

This is meant to be the Church's parliament. But it has none of the up-front rough and tumble of the House of Commons. It's more like the House of Lords without the spivs. This makes it slightly creepy; like a mafia movie, the luckless are stabbed in the back while they're being hugged.

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