Perspectief 2014-26

2014-26 The Ordination of Women 29 Reag eer Every decision has a cost My first article on the ordination of women appeared in 1978 under the title: Resistance against women’s ordination, how to handle it? If Canterbury admits women to the altar, the flirtation with Rome is over. 4 Well, Anglican women have been ordained since 1970. The Church of England finally allowed women to be priests indeed in the year 1993 and while writing this contribution in July 2014 the historic news came to me, that the Church of England on the 14th of July surprisingly said “yes” to women bishops also. 5 But as we all know: every decision has a cost. Obviously we hear voices from the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic side saying the same thing: “Canterbury admits women to the altar and the flirtation with Rome is over”. So we hear Metropolitan Hilarion 6 and - among others - Mgr Keith Newton, Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, saying: “Having agreed to permit women priests in 1992, the Church of England’s decision to allow women bishops is the next logical step. What is undeniable is that both developments make harder the position of those within the Church of England who still long for corporate unity with the Catholic and Orthodox Churches”. 7 So, my dear friends, here we have loud and clear the problem of catholicity, church communion and the ordination of women. I wrote several articles on the subject 8 and I was also part of the 4 M. Gosker, ‘Weerstanden tegen de vrouw in het ambt. Hoe pak je dat aan? Als Canterbury vrouw toelaat is flirt met Rome voorbij’, in: Ouderlingenblad 56 (1978) p. 655, quoted in daily Newspaper Trouw, 16-10-1978. 5 http://www.anglicannews.org/news/2014/07/church-of-england-says-yes-to-women-bishops.aspx 6 http://www.virtueonline.org/villanova-pa-metropolitan-hilarion-blasts-anglicans-renouncing-faith 7 Cf. M.J. Van Dyck, Worden Rome en Canterbury één , Lannoo, Tielt, 1990, pp 223-227. http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2014/07/15/ordinariate-reaches-out-to-anglicans-after-women- bishops-vote/ 8 M. Gosker, ‘Gods ‘ja’ en het ‘nee’ van de kerk. Ambtstheologische notities bij de vrouw in het ambt’, in: M. de Baar, F. Cossee, M. van Veen en A.Voolstra, Honderd jaar vrouwen op de kansel, 1911-2011 , Verloren, Hilversum, 2011, 53-65. ‘Mogen het ook pumps zijn? In de schoenen van de apostelen. Over apostoliciteit van vrouwen in de kerk’, my Lecture given for a Study Day of the