Archbishop of York Says Church Ordained Women too Hastily
Episcopal News Service. June 8, 1995 [95-1138A]
Church Times
(ENS) According to Archbishop of York John Habgood, the Anglican Church may have been in too much of a hurry to ordain women to the priesthood. In an interview with the Church Times, he said, "My belief is that if the bishops had been allowed to set their own pace, we might have avoided some of the traumas. As it was, we were pushed by the rest of the church."
The archbishop, who retires at the end of August, says that he has always been in favor of the ordination of women and says that he is pleased to be part of a church that ordains women. He regrets, however, the way the decision was made, beginning with what he describes as the "disastrous mistake" made by the Anglican Consultative Council in 1971 clearing the way for Anglicans in Hong Kong and the United States to move ahead. Habgood would have preferred more of a space between the ordination of women to the diaconate and to the priesthood because then "some of the objections to the ministry of women would have had much less substance."
He added that he has been surprised by how little difficulty the ordination of women has caused in relations with other churches. "In the normal ecumenical contacts that I've had with Rome and the Orthodox, it hasn't made the slightest bit of difference," he said, adding that the chances of unity with Rome were already seriously damaged by disagreements over authority.