Women Bishops Revision Committee

Over the past month or so since the publication of the interim recommendations of the revision committee there has been press release after blog post from the “inclusive” camp bemoaning the fact that the committee is recommending something that was allegedly rejected by Synod. For example, read the responses from WATCH, Inclusive Church and Affirming Catholicism amongst others.

The arguments that are made against the interim proposals themselves are good and worth engaging with, but I simply don’t understand where the complaint that the proposals are in the interim recommendations in the first place comes from. Read the motion passed by Synod very carefully:

‘That the Measure entitled “Bishops and Priests (Consecration and Ordination of Women) Measure” be considered for revision in committee.’

As far as I can see, such a motion makes absolutely no restriction on the work of the revision committee. While the Synod debate might have seen the expression of many different perspectives on the legislative protection (or otherwise) for traditionalists, the motion itself is wide open.

By all means the Synod may reject the work of the revision committee when it is presented to it next year, but to suggest that the work it has done so far is contrary to the mind of that same Synod is an exercise in semantics and an avoidance of the realities of the very procedure that Synod assented to in February.