MPs may “raise concerns” about the fact that the Church of England appears not to be willing to offer marriage in church to same-sex couples (Welby ‘would rather see C of E disestablished than split over same-sex marriage’, 1 February), but parliament has something to answer for in relation to the church and its attitude on such matters.
In 1992, the General Synod passed a relatively simple measure to allow women to become priests, but not to impose them where a parish wanted to maintain the then position of appointing only male priests. That did not satisfy the ecclesiastical committee of the time (a joint committee of MPs and peers) and they demanded “protection” and “safeguarding” against women priests by means of an Act of Synod. The church had no alternative but to oblige – and complicated arrangements were agreed whereby evangelical and, broadly, Anglo-Catholic parishes could opt out of the new regime and elect not to appoint women priests or to consider them for posts.
