It seems to be common ground that the advent of women bishops will bring to an end the uneasy truce provided by the Priests (Ordination of Women) Measure 1993, which exploited all available room for manoeuvre to enable women to be ordained as priests. Consecrated Women? acknowledges that existing safeguards provided for parishes within the 1993 Measure will need to be repealed, in order to facilitate the ministry of women as bishops in the Church of England.

General Synod must find a practical solution which is twofold. It must provide justly and adequately for those who can not accept the ministry of women in the episcopate. In doing so it will ensure that the greatest possible degree of unity exists within a future Church of England with women bishops. Forward in Faith is pinning its hopes on an additional province for the Church of England, in parallel with the existing geographical provinces of Canterbury and York, and proposes a draft measure for synodical consideration.

It is an ingenious scheme, but the fault lines begin to appear in the very first clause of the draft, which states that the new province will be "in communion with the See of Canterbury." A considerable section of Forward in Faith already regards that communion as being impaired, and since the measure paves the way for the possibility that the next Archbishop of Canterbury may be a woman, it is difficult to see how communion of any kind could be maintained for long.

The draft measure is likely to fail as a consequence of its requirement that bishops and incumbents wishing to belong to the new province will first be required to resign from office in their present posts. There may be some prepared to do so, but there are unlikely to be many. A considerable body would remain in the Church of England, unable to receive the ministry of their bishop or of colleagues whom she has ordained. The Church of England would be a house divided more sharply against itself than it is at present.

And what sort of ecclesial body would an additional province be? Parallel jurisdictions based on language or liturgy or ethnicity are nothing new. But Synod is likely to baulk at creating and cooperating with an alter ego which is defined by opposition to the ordination of women, which is out of communion but still umbilically connected to the temporal pillars of money and property held by the Pensions Board, the Church Commissioners, and diocesan boards of finance.

What is required is not a half measure but a full measure of realism and finality in the legislation which paves the way for women to become bishops in the Church of England, which will complete the development and reception of their ministry. The existence of an officially-sanctioned additional province would undermine the ministry of all concerned, including its own, by perpetuating a myth of provisionality which is already beyond credibility.

There will need to be a new Financial Provisions Measure, designed so that all clergy who wish to leave can actually do so, which proved impossible for many under the terms of the 1993 version. Arrangements will need to be made so that Parochial Church Councils, while retaining the property of the benefice, can cease to belong to the Church of England, if that is what they decide, and be free to align themselves elsewhere. Those who wish to establish a continuing church will of course be at liberty to do so. Ecumenical partners should be approached formally to discuss arrangements for those who wish to continue their ministry within another church, as individuals, parishes, or groups.

Ultimately the expectation will be that all who choose to remain will accept without reservation the ministry of women as priests and bishops, as the settled mind of the Church of England on this question. The legislation must be designed to make this possible.

--The Reverend Stephen Trott BA MA LLM is a member of General Synod and a Church Commissioner for England. This story was first published in the Church Times