UK: Financial threat over women bishops

http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=9479

[VirteuOnline] 5 Dec 2008--THE THIRD Province Movement has threatened the cancellation of diocesan quota payments if the House of Bishops introduces women bishops without making greater provisions for traditionalists than the Code of Practice.

In an open letter to the bishops, chairman Margaret Brown writes: "Since you have made no provision for traditional orthodox Anglicans, except a Code of Practice, they will have to make their own provision, and often in unconventional ways... you can expect the probability of their cancelling the payment of diocesan quota."

The chair of Women and the Church, Christina Rees, said: "I think it is extraordinary for Christians to threaten the bishops if they go ahead with what General Synod has voted for, and what the bishops themselves have voted for."

The letter from the movement, which counts the Bishop of Lewes, the Rt Rev Wallace Benn, amongst its patrons, reads: "The bishops had put their heads into a noose, and all that was necessary was for the ruthless campaigners to pull it tight.