Parliament Set to Interfere with Church Synod

As the General Synod (the Anglican church's parliament) gets ready to vote on legislation designed to allow for the free ordination of women as bishops, a group of MPs will ask Parliament to intervene. The reaction comes as fear grows that the Anglican church will reject the legislation. The group that will seek Parliament's intervention includes former ministers Frank Field and Stephen Timms, as well as Simon Hughes (deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats).

Traditionalists in the Anglican church believe that an increase in the number of opponents of female priests to the Synod has made their chances of blocking the law much better. The legislation can only pass if it receives a two-thirds majority in the houses of laity, clergy and bishops. Their main issue isn't so much with female bishops, but rather that they want a compromise. "Many of them feel that the current legislation does not provide sufficient concessions to those who cannot accept women as bishops." What the MPs wish to do is abolish the church's current exemption from equality laws, specifically in relation to gender discrimination. This would ultimately force the church to consecrate women.

This all comes on the heels of the conversion of 3 bishops into the new ordinariate, Our Lady of Walsingham. If Parliament does intrude upon the church's Synod, many more Anglicans (specifically the Traditionalists that hope to defeat the legislation) will convert to the new ordinariate. As time goes on, it will become more and more apparent that one cannot remain orthodox and Anglican. What the Traditionalists want is simply a compromise- they simply want to have more authority in allowing female bishops or not. The liberals in the Anglican church, however, are not willing to compromise. Though the MPs state that the majority in the church support the ordination of women as bishops, it's actually starting to be the reverse.