In six months, the pink episcopate will become a reality. Anglican Primate Rowan Williams has already urged the bishops to “prepare for a change of culture” – an agreement in the Church of England for female bishops.
The most innovative and the most traditionalist aspects of the Anglican hierarchy are in agreement about the “inevitable arrival” of the pink episcopate.
The idea is to allow the ordination of female bishops, keeping the male bishops for conservative dioceses that would not accept the former.
Meanwhile, the numbers of dioceses favorable to women bishops are constantly increasing.
In July, the Synod of the Anglican Church is widely expected to green light the ordination of female bishops. There is fear of a real avalanche that will overwhelm and split the Anglican Communion. The Church of England is trying to avoid a further distancing of the most conservative sectors, who oppose the pink episcopate.
Five Anglican bishops have already abandoned their ministries in the Church of England to join a personal ordinariate for Anglicans in full communion with the Catholic Church.
But it appears that the path has already been chosen. Legislation allowing the consecration of women to the episcopate will be introduced during the Synod in July. Then the process will be considered concluded. But allowing women access to the episcopate will be a step backwards for the dialogue between Catholics and Anglicans, according to the Holy See.
And many in the church hierarchy of the United Kingdom are worried by the threat of fragmentation within the Anglican Communion. The dioceses of Peterborough and Ripon and Leeds recently voted in favor of legislation to allow female bishops.
The Church of England decided to clear the way for women bishops at the Synod in July 2010. This is why dozens of pastors and hundreds of lay people abandoned the Church of England to join the Ordinariate - the structure designed by the Catholic and Anglican churches to allow Anglicans to come to Rome while maintaining the forms of Protestant liturgy.
There are just a few obstacles to gaining the majority of 23 dioceses out of 44 that will allow the legislation to come before the General Synod for the final vote. At that point, it will require a two-thirds majority in each of the three “houses” of the Synod (pastors, laity, and bishops) to formally declare that the Church of England will allow women to become bishops.
Some Anglican provinces in Australia, the United States, and Canada already have female bishops. But the ordination of women and homosexuals (like marriages between people of the same sex) remains the most controversial issue within the Anglican Communion, which has 80 million members all over the world.
The primate of the Anglican Communion, Rowan Williams, is now at loggerheads with the international association “Forward in Faith,” representing faithful Anglicans who oppose the consecration of female bishops. They are working behind the scenes toward conciliatory “solutions.”
The Apostolic Constitution “Anglicanorum coetibus,” published in November 2009, cleared the way for the entry of the Anglican community into the Catholic Church through the establishment of personal ordinariates, with characteristics similar to those of a non-territorial diocese - a new canonical structure.
This makes it possible to recognize the primacy of the Pope while maintaining elements of their own liturgical and spiritual tradition. So far, the defection of faithful Anglicans to the Catholic Church through the Ordinariate, supported by Benedict XVI, has included just five bishops, thirty priests, and hundreds of faithful eager to return to the ancient liturgy of the Mass in Latin.
So, despite defections, protests, and resistance, British women may also become bishops.
In July, the Anglican Church will authorize the ordination of bishops belonging to the fairer sex, but will also approve some measures that go against the traditionalist wing that is opposed to the change.
In 1994, when it approved the ordination of women as priests, the Anglican Church lost about 500 members of the clergy to the Catholic Church.
In July 2010, the Anglican Synod of York approved the ordination of female bishops, a decision that is being imposed gradually throughout the Anglican Communion - against the opinion of the traditionalist community.
The Anglican Communion is composed of 38 independent provinces, one of which is England. Several provinces already have female bishops. The consecration of female bishops could make the hemorrhage even larger. The Catholic Church opposes the path that in July will bring the introduction of legislation leading to the ordination of women to the episcopate.
The Catholic Church's position on the issue has remained unchanged since the days of Paul VI.
For the Holy See, the approval of the pink episcopate is equivalent to a tear in the apostolic tradition maintained by all Churches of the first millennium, and thus a further obstacle for reconciliation between the Catholic Church and the Church of England.
Thus the opening of the episcopate to the other half of the population will have negative consequences for dialogue with the Vatican.
The road ahead seems clear: female bishops next July, then the ordination of openly gay priests.
This is the path that the Anglican world has decided to take, regardless of the ever-growing community who, exactly because of this “liberal” turn, choose the diaspora, or to return to Rome."