Updated Friday morning and evening and Friday 7 June
Today’s issue of the Church Times has several articles about the latest proposals from the House of Bishops. Ed Thornton and Glyn Paflin report on them in Next step proposed on women bishops.
In Bleak outlook, says opponent Madeleine Davies reports on several responses to the proposals, in particular this one:
WHILE it might be “difficult for anyone to claim outright victory”, the way forward to women bishops mapped out by the House of Bishops, looked like “outright defeat”, the chairman of Reform, the conservative Evangelical network, Prebendary Rod Thomas, said on Tuesday…
And there is this Leader comment: No cheap trust.
Update
Yes2WomenBishops has issued several tweets including the following:
Church Times Leader gets a couple of important facts wrong. (1) senior women clergy were not at the last House of Bishops meeting and …
(2) proposal is NOT to pass the measure then develop the provisions for opponents – will all be done at the same time
So essentially the whole basis for the article is wrong!Here’s an excellent legal briefing on the oath of canonical obedience and why it is essentially meaningless http://ecclesiasticallaw.wordpress.com/2012/11/03/canonical-obedience/ …
Subsequently the Church Times has published a correction to its leader in response to point (1).
The paper copy of the Church Times dated 7 June 2013 carries this correction on page 8: ” The official women observers were not present at the last House of Bishops’ meeting, as we stated in last week’s leader comment. Also, “option one” allows for the provision for those who object to women bishops to be decided before final approval of the main Measure.”