EWS (Episcopal Web Service) for immediate release
For many the triumph of the 2006 General Convention of the Episcopal Church was the motion apologizing to Episcopalians of colour for the church’s failure to oppose slavery. There were moving speeches of contrition from delegates of previously slave-owning states, and a commitment to reparation towards communities of suffering.
The next Convention has taken the hint! We are proud to say that TEC will commit itself in 2009 to making a formal apology to its female members for refusing them ordination for the whole history of the Church until 1976.
Said Artemis Ependopolos, spokesperson for the Task Force on Female Inclusion: ‘This Church has trampled all over women. We have to make a new start and to rebuild relationships with half the human race.’
‘How can the Gospel have any credibility with female professional lone parents when we are seen to exclude them from the corridors of power?’ asked Quean Lutibelle, of GEoR (Gay Episcopalians for Reparation).
The vote for the motion proposing formal apology to Episcopal Women is expected to be overwhelming. The Presiding Bishop, will speak to Episcopal Women Worldwide immediately after the motion has been passed. She will give details of the Act of Reparation which will take place in every diocese, and will involve ordination to the episcopate for every woman in the Episcopal Church. ‘It is,’ Bishop Katherine will say, ‘the least we can do for those whose career prospects we have blighted for so long.’
An unexpected note of opposition, however, has come from retired suffragan bishop of Massachusetts, Barbara Harris. ‘I didn’t put the mitre on my own head to be followed into the club by every Tom, Dick and Harry,’ she said in her own characteristically robust way.