YORK, England (Reuters) - The Church of England moved a step closer on Monday to ordaining women as bishops, but deep divisions remained which could threaten their consecration or lead to a split between liberals and traditionalists.
The General Synod, or parliament, voted in favor of giving equal status to male and female bishops at the end of two days of debate in York, northern England, against the wishes of traditionalists and evangelicals.
They had called for safeguards such as new dioceses with all-male bishops, or the creation of a special class of bishop. Instead, the synod backed the draft legislation which would give women the authority to make local arrangements for objectors if necessary after referring to a statutory code of practice.
Same-sex marriages and the ordination of women and homosexual men as bishops are the most divisive issues facing the Anglican Communion, which has 77 million members worldwide.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the spiritual head of the church, recognized that tensions remained, saying "holding together is desperately difficult".
The Church of England, the Anglican mother church, had not yet "cracked" how to unite the majority view that women should be consecrated as bishops and the minority who object on Biblical or theological grounds.
"We have to recognize that those two goals are still the goals before us," he said.
Williams suffered embarrassment on Saturday when a joint amendment he had put forward with the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, offering conservatives concessions in an attempt to keep the broad church together, was narrowly defeated.
"HUNDREDS WILL LEAVE"
John Broadhurst, Bishop of Fulham, said some traditionalists would "go off to Rome pretty quickly", referring to an offer made by Pope Benedict last October which made it easier for disaffected Anglicans to convert to Roman Catholicism while keeping some of their traditions and liturgy.
"There's no question at all...this is the end of the road," he told Reuters.
He suggested several hundred clergy and many laity would leave in the next three years.
But other traditionalists said they would remain and fight for greater concessions. They warned that failure to deliver these could lead to the draft legislation hitting the buffers in 18 months' time when it returns to synod and will need to secure a two-thirds majority in each of the three houses. Failure to get this could delay women bishops by years.
"I'd much rather we'd seen us come up with a win-win situation, but if we can't then very sadly we will work to defeat the proposals," said Martyn Jarrett, Bishop of Beverley.
A last-minute attempt to send the draft legislation back for revision in an attempt to iron out differences was overwhelmingly defeated.
"We have sweated together, we have agonized together, we have wept together, we have hurt together, we have come to a place now where we just have to move on," said one member.
The draft legislation now goes to the dioceses. The legislation is unlikely to come into effect before 2014.
(Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
