Could Rose be the first female Bishop in the Church of England
Rose Hudson-Wilkin is an articulate, charismatic woman. It’s easy to see why she’s probably the leading contender to become the Church of England’s first woman bishop, but she would like to make something clear. It will have to be on equal terms. “No woman in her right mind will accept becoming a bishop unless she is able to do so on the same basis as a man,” she insists, calmly and clearly, but in words that will sound like a battle cry to traditionalists.
The long and emotive fight over this issue is about to reach a key moment, as the Church’s governing body meets in London this week. The General Synod is likely to approve legislation that will see women promoted within two years – but opponents are attempting to change the way the new church law will work.
They are seeking an amendment that will give them the legal right to ignore the authority of any female bishop, bypass her completely and elect to be led by a male one instead. “It is like apartheid,” says Hudson-Wilkin, who was born in Jamaica. “A lot of these guys are saying, 'Oh, we accept that women have got to be made bishops, it’s just that we don’t really want them to minister to us.’ It’s not that dissimilar from those who said, 'OK, we accept that apartheid needs to be abolished but can we just have one bus which is white only, so we can ride in it?’ ”
So would she be prepared to serve as a bishop on those terms? “No,” she says flatly. She would turn the job down? “Absolutely.”
Other leading candidates such as Lucy Winkett, Rector of St James’s, Piccadilly, are thought to agree, but would some women be willing to accept the conditions? “I hope there won’t be. It will be very sad if there are.”
This is fighting talk from a woman who admits she used to keep a cricket bat by the front door of her vicarage in east London in wait for aggressive midnight callers. But the 51-year-old from Montego Bay is no bruiser. She’s a sophisticated operator who is able to move between worlds, beginning each day in a parish where gang members roam and social deprivation is high, then travelling by bus to the Palace of Westminster to act as chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons.
Posted by Amanda Hopkins
Extract from http://www.telegraph.co.uk
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