Walkouts alert over women bishops

The Church's national assembly has begun a five-day meeting dominated by the issue of female bishops which is billed as a test of the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams.

The assembly is to consider draft legislation creating women bishops without the safeguards demanded by objectors such as new dioceses or a special class of bishop to cater for dissenters.

Instead, female bishops would have the authority to make local arrangements for objectors if necessary after referring to a statutory code of practice.

General Synod members are due to debate a series of amendments including proposed concessions to objectors tabled by Dr Williams and the Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu.

When the Church of England first ordained female priests, around 500 clerics who opposed the move left to join the Roman Catholic church.

The Vatican last year offered to accommodate further disaffected Anglicans in a decree made by Pope Benedict which outlined a structure that would allow them to retain their spiritual heritage. As before, married Anglican clergy are included.

A spokesman for the Anglo-Catholic grouping Forward in Faith, Stephen Parkinson, warned "large numbers" could take up the offer.

He said: "If what the Church of England does this weekend is not acceptable, these members will leave and they will take with them, of course, their money. Whether the Church of England can afford to lose them and their money remains to be seen.

"I suppose there will be some who will not leave and will stay but they are not exactly going to be in a co-operative frame of mind."

But Christina Rees, a leading campaigner for women bishops, and a General Synod member from Royston, Hertfordshire, urged the General Synod not to water down the legislation any further.

She warned against supporting the amendments put by Dr Williams and Dr Sentamu.

"I have the highest regard for the archbishops but I think what they have done is perhaps ill-timed and misguided," she said. "I am sure they put it with the intention of squaring the circle but I am afraid this is a circle that cannot be squared – that is saying yes to women bishops and in the same piece of legislation making arrangements in law to recognise the views of those who hold that women cannot be bishops."

The debate comes as Dr Williams faces a growing row over a decision by the Crown Nominations Commission to block the appointment of a gay cleric as Bishop of Southwark.

The Very Rev Jeffrey John, Dean of St Albans, was rejected as a candidate to replace the Rt Rev Dr Tom Butler, who retired earlier this year as Bishop of Southwark.

The first women priests in the Church of England were ordained in 1994 but they were barred from becoming bishops.

More than 5,000 women have been ordained in the Church of England since then and the number of women training for the ministry is increasing.

If the legislation is cleared by the Church of England at this meeting the earliest possible date for the first women bishops would be 2014.

Dvd launched by archbishop

An interactive DVD – The English Parish Church through the Centuries – was launched by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, at the General Synod in York yesterday.

The DVD has been produced by Christianity and Culture Department of the University of York and traces the development of the country's most iconic ecclesiastical buildings across the centuries. Nearly 230 scholars were involved.