HOLY ORDERS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 48, Issue 141, 26 March 1928, Page 5

HOLY ORDERS

NOT FOR WOMEN. BISHOP OF DURHAM’S VIEWS. RIGHT PLACE IN THE FAMILY. (Per Press Association.) (Received This Lay, -9.5 a.m) LONDON, March 20. “The world to-day needs faithful fulfilment of ' women’s normal functions. This cannot be achieved _in female priests and bishops, but in Christian wives and mothers.’* said the Bishop of Durham (the Right Rev. Dr. H. 'H. Henson) at the Diocesan Conference. “The enormous decrease in the ordination of candidates has brought about v, a crisis in the Anglican Church, resulting in church schools having disappeared in most parishes. Assistantourates are rapidly going. Incumbents are ceasing to be, and parish priests are becoming ministers to such congregations as they can gather in industrial districts. A generation is growing up not possessing -the elements of Christian faith. I do not believe that Christians will be met by women priests. There is no as-1 sumption of female inferiority in their s exclusion from Holy Orders. The only recognition of woman’s distinctiveness in natural functions cannot he ignored. “The spiritual achievements of indir -vidoal women, past or present, do not justify such a departure from Christ’s institutions, and such a breach of Christendom’s traditions as the admission of women to Holy Orders in equality with men. \ “The most menacing, modern evil is the repudiating of woman’s wifely and motherly functions, largely due to the multitude of single woman who, in consequence of the war, are unable to marry and are therefore seeking alternatives. This repudiation, dictated by < a perverted notion of sexual equality 1 made possible by the misapplication of j science, implies disintegration of the < family and the elimination of the prin- ] cipal discipline in which citizenship is s Divinely ordained to develop. This deliberate, shameless, actively propagandist abuse constitutes, a challenge the i •Churches dare not ignore.’’