Church And Women

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32032, 5 July 1969, Page 2

Church And Women

Row Over Service (N.Z.P.A. Staff Correspondent) LONDON, July 4. Women have yet to be freely accepted Into higher counsels of the Free Church of Scotland. Thia la clear from a controversy now raging within the Church as a result of a woman. Dr Agnes Macgregor, serving the Queen with communion wine during a General Assembly communion service in St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh, last month. Dr Macgregor is reported to be a personal friend of the Moderator of the General Assembly of the church, the Rt Rev. Dr T. M. Murchison, who conducted the service. The July issue of the Free Church “Monthly Record” says the fact that the elder who served the Queen communion at the service was a woman displeased the minister of the cathedral, Dr Harry Whitley, The paper says: “We can understand and sympathise with Dr Whitley’s dissatisfaction.” ■

New Order Planned (N.Z.P.A.^Reuter—Copyright) VICTORIA (British Columbia), July 3. A former Australian Carmelite nun on her way to Canada to start an experimental community will not be given a free rein until her standing in the Roman Catholic Church Is established, said Bishop Remi De Roo of Victoria. Sister Margaret Rowe, who criticised male rule in the church last year, followed up her complaint with a recent open letter to the Catholic (press renouncing her canonical status in the Carmelite order. Her next move was an announcement that she would start a new order in British Columbia. When Bishop De Roo first . heard of her some months ago he encouraged her to come “and talk it over.” But, he said, that was before her resignation from the order. “I don’t know exactly what her standing Is now. At first it seemed she was coming with the understanding of her own community,” he said.