Communion service boycott considered

Press, 20 October 1987, Page 29

Communion service boycott considered

Christchurch Anglican women priests are divided over whether a boycott of Communion services should be made by fellow New Zealand clergy attending the Lambeth Conference of Bishops in England next year. The Bishop .of Christchurch, the Right Rev. Maurice Goodall, is one of several Anglican clergy going to the conference who have received a request from the influential Provincial Board for Ministry in New Zealand not to take Communion at Lambeth, in sympathy with the women priests not allowed to celebrate the Eucharist. The Church of England does not recognise women priests because it does not allow the ordination of women. The Provincial Board is a national body set up in 1980 by the New Zealand Anglican General Synod to care for ministry train-

ing throughout the tryLambeth Conferences, which were held every 10 years, were for the bishops from the 450 diocese throughout the world, but some laity, including women who acted as advisors to the bishops, were also invited as guests to the conference, said Bishop Goodall. Bishop Goodall said the 18 ordained women in the Christchurch diocese he had spoken to had expressed their concern that New Zealand women would not be accepted in England as fully ordained priests, but they were divided over whether the Communion service should be used as a focus of disapproval. Bishop Goodall said he personally would celebrate Communion if ,asked, but would take the opportunity during the service to point to the New Zealand Church’s

long experience of ordaining women. “Some of the women I talked to felt that would be more useful than using the Communion service to express disapproval. “In some way the controversy seems remote to us here in New Zealand, because the Anglican Church here has been ordaining women for 10 years,” said Bishop Goodall. New Zealand was one of five Anglican Provinces worldwide that now ordained women. In spite of intense lobbying, the Church of England and the Anglican Church in Australia were among those still resisting the measure. The Provincial Board’s proposed boycott had not yet been discussed by any diocesan synod, the General Synod, or the standing committee of the General Synod, which will meet in November.