Policy on women priest foes eased

By Darrell Holland

Religion editor

Episcopalians who cannot subscribe to the ordination of women as priests are not to be considered outlaw members of their church.

The denomination's House of Bishops declared at its annual meeting this month in Florida that church members whose conscience does not allow them to accept women as priests should not be coerced into accepting them.

The bishops action, in effect, makes the church canon, or law, that sanctions women priests null and void for those bishops, priests and laymen who want to ignore it.

The action probably will not be acceptable to many members who believe it is impossible for a woman to be a priest. They want a ban on women priests.

It also undoubtedly will arouse the ire of the supporters of women priests and will be judged as discriminatory against women by some.

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Bishop John H. Burt of the Ohio Episcopal Diocese said after returning from the meeting that the bishops interpreted last year's vote to accept women priests as permissive and not coercive.

The bishop' committee on theology, chaired by Bishop Burt, said that the approval of women priests, in effect, gave dioceses and bishops who want to ordain women the permission to proceed.

A committee paper on the freedom of conscience in relation to women's ordination said the General Convention did not mean that women priests .must be accepted by all Episcopalians.

The bishops endorsed the committee's paper in a move that was more than academic. At least 25 of the prelates, including the presiding bishop, have said they believe the Bible and church tradition prohibits women from becoming priests.

Many other priests and laymen fake a similar position.

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Despite the passage of the "con-

Science clause," Bishop Burt said that

the 125 bishops attending the meeting were shocked at the opening speech of Presiding Bishop John M. Allin in which he unequivocally stated publicly for the first time his opposition to women priests.

Bishop Allin, who also said he would not receive communion from any of the 60 women already ordained, offered to resign if the bishops decided he should. There was no move to request the resignation.

The presiding bishop also said that he did not believe the 1928 edition of the Book of Common Prayer should be totally supplanted by a revised prayer book in modern English. The new version is expected to receive final approval in 1979.

Bishop Burt said he does not question the right of the presiding bishop to express his opinions on women priests and the prayer book revision, both which Bishop Burt

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supports and both which were approved by last year's General Convention.

But the Ohio prelate said that Bishop Allin's opposition to the two major actions of the convention obviously jeopardized the power and influence of the church's top leader.

Asked if Bishop Allin could continue to be an effective national leader of the church, Bishop Burt said, "I don't know, but he is the only presiding bishop we've got.".

Seven of the delegates to the convention from the Ohio diocese have sent a telegram to Bishop Allin contending that his position on women priests creates serious conflict with the canon that permits women. to become priests.

Despite such protests, Bishop Allin's position on women priests and the prayer book may placate some conservatives in the church who have threatened to pull out and form a new Anglican church primarily because of the two issues.

Bishop Burt said he does not believe there will be a schism, which was threatened at a meeting of 1,750 dissidents last month in St. Louis. "There could be a splinter group breaking away, but no major schism," he said.

The St. Louis meeting, Bishop Burt said, was attended by only a small number of the nearly three million Episcopalians in the nation. "The meeting was not that significant," he said.

The bishops at their meeting also said they are opposed to the ordination of "advocating and/or practicing homosexuals" and of permitting homosexual lovers to marry using the church's marriage rite.

In a letter from the bishops to be read in the churches, they said:

"It is clear from Scripture that the sexual union of man and woman is God's will and that this finds holy expression within the covenant of marriage. Therefore this church confines its nuptial blessing to the union of male and female.

"It is likewise clear that in ordination, this church publicly requires each ordinand to fashion his or her personal life after Christ as an example to be faithful."

Dissidents have openly opposed accepting gays, contending that. homosexuality is a sin.

A committee of the Ohio diocese recently published a study which proposes opening the priesthood and the church's marriage rites to homosexuals.

Perhaps the clearest implication of the bishop' actions is that they are attempting to nip any major revolt from the church in its infancy.

The presiding bishop's outspoken stand against women in the priesthood is a strategy to encourage those who hold similar views to stay in the church.

If the church's top leader can oppose women as priests and continue in office, then it would be quite appropriate for others, including priests and laymen, to exercise their opposition within the church.

So far, only about 20 parishes out of 7,200 have acted to secede from the denomination, but the protesters say the movement will grow.

How many churches finally pull out could be determined largely by how the courts rule in several test cases on whether departing parishes can retain property and other assets or whether they revert to their dioceses.