Rowan Williams: Enough Waiting

Rowan Williams is now urging the passing of the measure to allow the ordination of women bishops in the Church of England. This is a bit of a turn-around after his earlier efforts to placate conservatives on this issue. Perhaps now that he's decided to step down as Archbishop of Canterbury, he feels he can finally be more upfront about his views.

What he wrote about having women bishops in the Church of England would be just as true for having women ordained in the Catholic Church ...

[...] It is good news for women, who are at last assured in more than words alone that their baptismal relationship with Jesus Christ is not different from or inferior to that of men, as regards their fitness for public ministry exercised in Christ's name and power.

It is good news for men, who may now receive more freely the spiritual gifts God gives to women, because women are recognised among those who can, at every level, animate and inspire the Church in their presidency at worship. So it is good news for the whole Church, in the liberating of fresh gifts for all.

It is good news for the world we live in, which needs the unequivocal affirmation of a dignity given equally to all by God in creation and redemption - and can now, we hope, see more clearly that the Church is not speaking a language completely remote from its own most generous and just instincts.