Seven more diocesan synods voted on the Women in the Episcopate legislation today: Bath & Wells, Birmingham, Bradford, Lichfield, Liverpool, Oxford and Peterborough.
We await the results from Bath & Wells, but the motion was approved by large majorities in the other dioceses.
We await precise voting figures from Lichfield, but t The motion was approved in all seven synods.
So far 20 dioceses have voted in favour and none against. At least 23 dioceses must vote in favour if the draft legislation is to return to General Synod in July.
The next diocesan synod votes will be on 29 March in Bristol, Hereford, Lincoln, Norwich and Portsmouth. If approved by those synods it will have passed the threshold of more than half the dioceses, guaranteeing its return to the General Synod.
Detailed voting figures for all dioceses are here.
Voting at the Bath & Wells diocesan synod:
Bishop – 1 in favour, 0 against, 0 absetentions
Clergy: 59 in favour, 3 against, 1 abstention
Laity: 57 in favour, 1 against, 0 abstentions
Christina Baron
Chair of the house of Laity, Bath & Wells
Good old Tony Robinson, the only bishop, so far, to make a stand against the rising tide. Although, I fear, it looks like being a rather King Canute style stand. Give that man a diocese.
Poor old King Cnut. His demonstration of the limits of his power so misunderstood over the centuries.
You have to remember, Fr. David, that we are not voting on whether to have women bishops but on how to do it. The ‘whether’ decision was taken a while ago.
Charles Read, you are, of course, correct in what you write but it would seem from the way in which the Bishop of Pontefract has voted that, in the immortal words of Mr. Punch, he doesn’t believe that “That’s the way to do it!”