Hefty decision carries little weight for Sydney

A possible ruling allowing diocesan bishops to appoint women bishops by the Appellate Tribunal of the Anglican Church in Australia is unlikely to affect the average Sydney Anglican, says Anglican Church League Chairman, Robert Tong.

“My view is that whichever way the tribunal decides, it’s not going to change what happens in the Diocese. If the tribunal says ‘yes’, it’s not going to bring about the recognition of women bishops in the Diocese, because this needs the approval of Sydney synod.”

The tribunal is currently assessing the constitution of the Anglican Church in Australia to decide whether there is any legal barrier to prevent diocesan bishops from appointing women bishops.

Lawyers acting for supporters of women bishops have told the tribunal there is no legal impediment to the change. They claimed that a ruling made to allow women bishops in 1992 by taking the word ‘person’ to mean both men and women, could directly transfer to the case for women bishops.

However, the Sydney Diocese believes the matter should be decided by the General Synod, rather than the Appellate Tribunal.

“This would be a fundamental shift from dealing with the big question in the parliament of the church, that is the General Synod, to having the lawyers deal with the question,” Mr Tong told The Religion Report.

Mr Tong added that a ruling in favour of women bishops would inevitably damage the unity of the church in Australia and could act as a precedent for dioceses to ‘go it alone’ on other issues in the future.

“If we have women bishops in the Australian church, my intelligence is that in many dioceses which might go the way of having a woman bishop, there will be a number of congregations who will no longer see the bishop as the focus of unity.”

Mr Tong added that those parishes who were not in agreement would bear the brunt of the decision.

“I think the difficulty would be with the congregations who are unhappy with having a woman bishop. They can’t move dioceses.”

A final decision could take months so the best response is to “wait and pray that the Tribunal will follow its own previous decisions of leaving the ‘big questions to General Synod,” says Mr Tong.

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