So…the Church of England has voted to allow female bishops. Which sounded awesome to me, despite the fact that those opposed to it have called those in favor of it “mean spirited” for disallowing “super bishops” (read: male bishops) for congregants that object to the authority of a female bishop. I’ll come back to that.
So my reaction was, “Cool! Progressive!” until I realized that the CoE has allowed female priests for some time. Second-class priests who were not allowed, like the super priests one might suppose, to become bishops. Which is just idiotic. If a class of people is fit for the priesthood, they are also fit for the bishopric. Denying the basic rights (rites? tee hee) of priesthood to a class of priests is only slightly better than denying priesthood to a class of people.
It’d be like saying, “You can be a priest, but you can’t baptize anyone.” or “You can be a doctor, but you can’t prescribe anything.”
So, female priests in the CoE are now actually priests. Which means some of them can become bishops. Which is, of course discriminatory against patriarchal misogynists who object to giving authority to women. They would like to allow anyone who objects to the authority of a female bishop to be able to instead report to a “super bishop”, one whose primary superpower would be possession of a penis. How mean spirited of those ghastly liberals to deny the basic right of hatred to those poor, oppressed Traditionalists. My heart just bleeds for them.
aside: I can’t wait for the first female Archbishop of Canterbury. Oh! how the sparks will fly then!
5 responses so far ↓
1 wren // Jul 8, 2008 at 7:26 am
It’d be like saying, “You can be a priest, but you can’t baptize anyone.” or “You can be a doctor, but you can’t prescribe anything.”
Or “You , dark skinned male, can be a member of the LDS church but you cannot be a priesthood holder or enter the temple aka The House of the Lord. ” At least not until it becomes so unpopular to discriminate that the church caves in 1978 and then deems it to be the will of God.”
2 Isaac // Jul 8, 2008 at 7:39 am
I thought it was interesting that the first ordination won’t be able to happen until “at least” 2015 from the article I read about this.
3 wren // Jul 8, 2008 at 7:45 am
I brought this up on my Independence Day post and this brings it back up in my mind.
What is going on right now that people will look back at years from now and think what sort of awful society were we that we denied basic rights such as x,y,z to people?
Sometimes I wonder if we’re not vocal enough in decrying lack of parity.
4 Bored in Vernal // Jul 8, 2008 at 8:35 am
Well, we endowed female members of the LDS church apparently hold the priest(ess)hood, but cannot do anything with it…
…at least in the approved fashion…
5 xJane // Jul 8, 2008 at 2:49 pm
you know, wren: it’s exactly like that
BiV: yeah, I know. in the Catholic Church, some women are getting ordained by sympathetic bishops in objection to the fact that they can’t elsewise
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