Anglicans could have woman spiritual head

LONDON - A Church of England report yesterday paved the way for a female Archbishop of Canterbury but said that having a woman as spiritual leader of the world's Anglicans was still a long way off.

As a first step, women bishops could be ordained by the year 2012, it added, but not before an elaborate compromise is worked out to placate opponents.

The issue of whether women should be allowed to break through the so-called "stained glass ceiling" to take senior jobs in the church has provoked heated debate.

It has been running alongside the other current major Anglican controversy: the ordination of gay priests.

Two years of deepening differences among the world's 77 million Anglicans were sparked by the ordination of gay American bishop Gene Robinson and the blessing of same sex marriages in Canada.

Presenting the report on women bishops, Christopher Hill, Bishop of Guildford, in Surrey, said: "There is no course of action, including the status quo, that is free of pain and risk."

The report proposed that a special team of male bishops be set up to administer to the needs of parishes who refuse to recognise women bishops.

"We believe the Church of England should have enough rooms - with interconnecting doors - in our traditionally inclusive household of faith," Hill said of the report, now up for discussion by the Church's General Synod next month.

Asked for a possible timetable on when the first women bishops could be ordained, Hill told reporters: "2012 is possible but I am not going to make a commitment."

That would put the Church of England in line with Anglicans in Canada, the United States and New Zealand who already have women bishops.

The report said the most sensible way forward in England would be to open all episcopal offices to women.

But choosing a woman as spiritual leader of the world's Anglicans would require special consideration by the British government-appointed commission that picks a new Archbishop.

"If the day comes when a woman is installed on the throne of St Augustine, (Canterbury) it would indeed be a notable day in church history," the report said.

But Hill, noting that there were only nine vacancies for the top job in the whole of the 20th century, said of a woman becoming Archbishop of Canterbury: "I suspect that may be a very long way off."

A decade after the Church of England ordained its first women priests, liberals say it is insulting not to let them hold positions of power. One in six of England's parish priests is a woman.

But traditionalists argue that as Jesus Christ's apostles were all men, there is no precedent for in the Bible for women bishops.

- REUTERS