WOMEN AS PRIESTS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20166, 7 June 1928, Page 8

WOMEN AS PRIESTS

A BISHOP’S PROTEST PLACE IN THE HOME. Some amount of controversy has been caused by a .statement made by the Bishop of Durham, regarding the admission of women to iloly Orders. “I find no reason which could justify so great a breach with the traditions of Christendom as the admission of women to Holy Orders on equal terms with men.”

This statement was made by the Bishop in an address to the Durham Diocesan Conference. ‘‘lt is not, to my mind, by the admission of women to Holy Orders,” he said, “that the present crisis ought to be met. There is no assumption of female inferiority in excluding women from Holy Orders. but only a recognition of their distinctiveness in a natural function. The Church of England would hardly be justified in taking up, on its own authority, a position which would involve a departure from the institutions of Christ and the traditions of the universal Church.

“The world needs to-day the faithful fulfilment of women’s normal natural functions. What is the most menacing evil of our times? Is it not the repudiation of wifely and motherly functions? This is a contemporary feature, due partly to the result of our insular position, partly to the consequence of the Great War, as w T cll as to ihe fact that there are a multitude of single women who, through no fault of their own, cannot receive the normal Junction of domestic life, and arc, therefore, casting about for alternat-

“This repudiation of the natural functions dictated by a perverted notion of sexual equality and made possible by the misapplication of science, implies a disintegrating of the family and the withdrawal from society of the principle discipline in which citizenship is divinely ordained to develop. The abuse is .deliberate, shameless, and actively propagandist. It constitutes a challenge to the Christian Church which we dare not ignore. The world wantj desperately not ±>- irnle priests cud bish.ips, but Christian wives aril mothers.” Otter Opinions. That women are equally capable of fulfilling the duties of clergy as men is su.ppo ft.d by prominent people, each of whom suggests that women have greater natural gifts for the calling:— Miss Ellen Wilkinson, M.P.: “I cannot see why being an oniained minister should interfere with the fulfilment of women’s natural function, for all their lime is not taken up with children. 1 think that an elderly and experienced woman. who has been a wife or mother, would far better understand people’s difficulties, and therefore make a better minister than most young curates.”

Sir Arbuthnot Lane: “If women are doctors or .'ar* yers, I see no reason why they should not be ministers, and their duties as such would, in point of time, interfere less with their natural functions than those of a doctor. Besides, women arc infinitely more religious than men, and therefore more fitted to preach religion.” Mi,-s Olga Nethersole, founder of the People’s League of Health: “The call to the Church is one that has to be obeyed, and. should be obeyed equally if it comes to women or men. Women have achieved* a spiritual height which is certainly as high as that of men.” The Rev. Herbert Dunnico, M.P.: “The Christian ministry includes many functions, and; some of them could be performed equally well, if not better, by women than by men. In domestic and family troubles women will open their hearts with greater confidence to women than to men. But the question

calls for calm and careful consideration, and I agree with the opinion of the Bishop that the supreme function of woman is motherhood.” Different Functions. The Rev. Basil Bouchier, Vicar of Hampstead: Garden Suburb: “I agree with the Bishop of Durham that the refusal to admit women to Holy Ordoes not in any sense imply inferiority. It is simply that men and women have different functions. I went into this matter very thoroughly some years ago, and I found that tho opinion. cf we men gcnerrJJy was woolly against the admission of their sex to Orders. W 1 rout women all the churches would be bankrupt. There arc maintained by v,omen. The home is just so flourishing as ever it was, and I do not know what the Bishop of Durham means by his attack on women and the home. But on the question of women as priests. I think the Bishop is sound. Women who feel that they have a very special service in the Church can express that feeling in deaconesses.”

To Bishop Welldon, Dean of Durham, it seems i.dle to assert that the function of women was to be good wives and good mothers. Not only was the number of women far greater than that of mon, but marriage had become so expensive that many men shrank from it. and. the problem of providing careers for educated women became ever more insistent.

find difficulty in believing,” he said, “that, if the State treats women on a basis of equality with men. the Church will always be able to keep them on a basis of inferiority. It scorns illogical that, women should bo admitted to the Cabinet, and yet excluded from the deaconate. What St. Paul said on tho. subject cannot be justly reganded as determining the policy of the Church for all time. If some women are. admitted to preach sermons in churches, arc encouraged to prepare candidates for Confirmation, and are empowered under restrictions to hear confessions, there would seem no sufficient reason for denying the recognition which would he implied in the gift of Holy Orders.”