Religion: Hour Of Decision for Women Priests

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Hardworking and attentive, Anthea Williams, 37, rises early every weekday morning to tend to the spiritual needs of the parishioners of Christ Church in Maidstone, a small town in southeast England. She baptizes babies, conducts funerals, comforts the sick in their homes and in hospital beds, and leads her congregation in prayer in the small, modern brick church. But as a woman, she is forbidden to celebrate the rite of Holy Communion for her flock of 40 parishioners. That central act of worship can be performed only by male clerics in the Church of England, who occasionally neglect even to show up for services. Says Williams: "If I don't have someone there on Sundays to celebrate Communion, I can't do anything. For the parish, it's very frustrating to say the least."

Such disappointments may soon end for Williams and the 700 other deaconesses, or nonordained ministers, serving in the 27 million-member Church of England, the "mother church" of the worldwide Anglican Communion. On Feb. 6 the church's bishops issued a report endorsing the ordination of women. The study's purpose: to simplify the complicated and divisive process that may authorize female clergy for the Church of England by the early 1990s and to soften any disruptions in church life that such an action would cause.

This week the General Synod, the church's legislative body, which is composed of three houses (bishops, clergy and laity), will vote on the issue. Women make up almost 20% of the synod and, taking into account the bishops' support for female ordination, approval is virtually certain. The move would further fuel a controversy that has raged in the church since the campaign for women priests began gathering strength twelve years ago. Seven of the 28 provinces that form the 70 million-member worldwide Anglican Communion, including churches in the U.S. and Canada, have opened the ranks of the priesthood to women, but the parent church has so far been reluctant to take that step.

Within the Evangelical, or Low Church branch of the Church of England, some biblical literalists oppose women clergy because of the belief that the Scriptures forbid women's holding authority over men. But the most determined opposition has come from the High Church, or Anglo-Catholic wing, which is close to Roman Catholicism in many of its beliefs, traditions and rituals. The focus for this resistance is the outspoken Bishop of London, the Rt. Rev. Graham Leonard, 65. Anglo-Catholics concur with Roman Catholic teaching that creating women priests would violate the intentions of Jesus Christ and would deviate from an unbroken church practice of ordaining only men. Bishop Leonard has collected 18,000 signatures from conservative Anglicans, some of whom say they might follow him into an independent schismatic church if the Church of England approves female priests. Proponents of ordination for women call this stand "blackmail." Says Margaret Webster, executive secretary of the Movement for the Ordination of Women: "They made those threats before women were ordained in the American Episcopal Church, but few people actually left."