The Church of England may vote to create a new clergy position, Riazat Butt reports in the Guardian:
According to a series of official documents, published for the first time yesterday, the archbishops of Canterbury and York can nominate men as “complementary” bishops who will tend to parishes opposed to women’s ministry. Such a bishop would perform functions in areas where the diocesan bishop is either a woman or a man who ordains women.
It is one of several steps designed to heal a rift over the ordination of women as bishops, a row that peaked last July during an emotional, sometimes angry, meeting of the General Synod, the Church of England’s national assembly, while also removing the legal obstacles currently barring women from holding the office.
…The documents acknowledge that some of its arrangements will restrict the rights of women bishops and cites the Church of England’s continuing exemption from the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 that where there are conflicting rights, the “exercise of one right may sometimes need to be restricted in order to protect the exercise of another right”.
Read the full article here.