Brothers+ A real blessing of the APA Synod was that we didn't have to deal with a collision course from within. Charles+ "------------------------------------- http://www.churchtimes.co.uk Women bishops — a collision course? THE WAY in which the Church of England has handled the issue of women bishops is embarrassing. Twelve years after the vote to ordain women as priests, six years after the commissioning of a detailed report on the theology of women bishops, two years after the report’s publication, one year after a vote in the General Synod to set in train the process of removing legal obstacles to women bishops, six months after another Synod voted to explore Transferred Episcopal Authority (TEA), the Church finds itself almost back at square one. Next month’s Synod meeting is to be asked to affirm that women bishops would be consonant with the faith of the Church, and to approve the formation of a legislative drafting group — without having given such a group any indication of the sort of legislation required. Despite all this time and effort, the Church is no nearer to agreeing a plan to accommodate those who oppose women bishops. The TEA proposals were effectively shot down by the Bishops of Guildford and Gloucester, who were charged with developing them in the light of comments from the various lobby groups and a set of ecumenical observers. The two bishops uncovered serious reservations on both sides, and a high level of bewilderment among the ecumenical observers. Their report is full of seemingly incompatible remarks, such as "The Church of England should not seem grudging about the ordination of women," and "further impairment of communion would not be good for the spiritual life of our country." The House of Bishops concluded that a workable TEA scheme was still some way off, and that, in any case, serious theological and ecclesiological questions needed to be addressed first. The Synod’s task will be to make something of this shambles. Traditionalists fear that, without a negotiated agreement, the issue will be decided on a show of strength. They recognise that the majority want to open the episcopate to women (synodical voting stands at about 75 per cent). They have been assured that no one wants them to form a separate Church. The paradox is that, if the Synod does indeed reject TEA because it looks too much like the establishment of a separate Church, traditionalists will feel pushed out anyway, unless something emerges from the longer period of reflection that the Bishops think is needed. The election by the General Convention of the Rt Revd Katharine Jefferts Schori as the next Presiding Bishop of ECUSA will give us an early lesson in how collegiality, one of the sticking points in England, might work between bishops, or in this instance Primates, who don’t recognise each other’s orders. The dysfunction of the Primates’ Meeting in Dromantine last year did not bode well. In any case, the inability of the General Convention to agree anything that might reconcile ECUSA with its critics means that Bishop Jefferts Schori’s gender is a relatively minor item on the agenda — as it should be.