Women bishops plan fast-tracked after warning change ‘urgently needed’ Church of England General Synod speeds ahead with women bishops after warning it has ‘overfished the shallow pond’ of male candidates for bishoprics and ‘urgently’ needs women to fill posts The Church of England has overwhelmingly approved a fast-track scheme which could see its first women bishops appointed this year – after being told it has run out of male clerics who are up to the task. Members of the Church’s decision-making General Synod voted by a margin of nine to one to suspend its normal rules to speed up the process of changing ecclesiastical law to admit women to the episcopate. It came as one member of the Synod was applauded as he warned bluntly that it “urgently” needs to ordain its first women bishops because it has effectively run out of male clerics who are up to the task. He said that, with a string of bishoprics already lying empty and a growing backlog of appointments to make, the “shallow pond” of suitable male candidates had already been “overfished”. Earlier, in a sermon, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby, warned the Church it must be “open and outward-looking” in spite of its inward-looking instincts. The vote – with 358 members in favour, only 39 against and nine abstentions – means that local dioceses will now be asked to give their approval to the change within the next three months. That would open the way for the Synod to give its final approval when it next meets in July, enabling it to become law this year. Crucially members voted almost unanimously to scrap the most controversial piece of church law of modern times, the 1993 Act of Synod which made special arrangements for traditionalists to opt out when women priests were first ordained. It follows a dramatic change of mood in the 15 months since a previous attempt to allow women to become bishops failed by a handful of votes, sending the Church into crisis. During a good tempered debate about the new, simpler proposals long-standing opponents of women bishops repeated promises not to stand in the way of the overwhelming majority. But others expressed frustration at how long he process has taken. Tim Allen, a lay member of Synod from the diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich said that the “lamentable, stumbling slowness” that the Church had demonstrated on the subject in the past had done real harm to the Church of England’s reputation. He said women bishops were “long overdue” to end a perception of the Church as an “out-of-date, old fashioned and bigoted organisation”. “I want to congratulate the Archbishop of Canterbury for so remarkably spurring on the previously sedate Synodical procedures into a hell-for-leather gallop in this final furlong,” he added. He said that the Church urgently needs to “revive” its episcopate with an “injection” of talent from the growing ranks of senior female clerics already serving as cathedral deans, archdeacons and parish rectors. Click here for the rest of the article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/rel...ked-after-warning-change-urgently-needed.html