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- THE WEEK, Page 22SOCIETYThe Pulpit Barrier
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- The Church of England admits women priests, but Anglicans will
- remain split
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- For their part, the Bishops and Priests gave strong approval.
- But among lay delegates at the Church of England's synod in
- London, the historic ballot that approved women as priests
- reached the required two-thirds by a margin of just two votes.
- That close decision broke 19 centuries of tradition, and it
- brings pressure to bear on men-only branches in the worldwide
- Anglican Communion (70 million members) to imitate the English
- mother church, U.S. Episcopalians and others. (Australia's
- Anglicans are expected to authorize women this week.) In England
- one-fourth of the bishops and priests remain strongly opposed,
- and some kind of split could develop when ordinations of women
- begin in 1994. A Vatican spokesman warned that the Anglican move
- "constitutes a new and grave obstacle" in the effort to reunite
- Anglicanism and Catholicism. Nevertheless, Archbishop of
- Canterbury George Carey beseeched the synod to "take the risk
- of faith," and it did.
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