Ordination of women

Ordination of women to ministerial or priestly office is an increasingly common practice among many major religious groups in the present time.

1800s

 * There are only two classes of persons absolutely incapable of ordination; namely, unbaptized persons and women. Ordination of such persons is wholly inoperative. The former, because baptism is the condition of belonging to the church at all. The latter, because by nature, Holy Scripture and Catholic usage they are disqualified.
 * Robert Phillimore, The Ecclesiastical Law of the Church of England. United Kingdom, H. Sweet, 1873. p114

1920s

 * The world to-day needs the faithful fulfilment of women's normal, natural functions–not female priests and bishops, but Christian wives and mothers.
 * Dr Hensley Henson, Bishop of Durham at a diocesan conference, reported in 'Woman's Status', The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), 26 March 1928, p. 11.
 * What St. Paul said about women cannot justly be regarded as determining the policy of the Church for all time. It was idle to assert that the function of women was to be good wives and mothers. If the State treated women and men on a basis of equality the Church could not always be able to keep women on a basis of inferiority. The time was coming when the ordination of women would be an accomplished fact.
 * Bishop J. E. Welldon, Dean of Durham, reported in 'Women Priests', News (Adelaide, SA: 1923 - 1954), 29 March 1928, p. 7. (HOME EDITION)

1930s

 * There is no fear that the truth of the equality in Christ of men and women, will not be ultimately accepted by the Church. Despite the fact that at the present time fewer women are said to be coming to the Church, there is no doubt that women have religious souls. There is no reason why women should be excluded from ordination.
 * Rev Paul Gibson, Principal of Ridley Hall, Cambridge, reported in 'Women priests: Sex and ordination', Western Mail (Perth, WA : 1885 - 1954), Thu 27 Apr 1933, p5

1970s

 * From our study of holy orders and the difference between the sexes in scripture, church history and contemporary society, we can find no considerations weighty enough to justify any longer the exclusion of women from ordination.
 * Report of the Doctrine Commission of the Anglican Church of Australia, 1977, reported in "Doctrine Commission calls for women priests" in The Australian Church Record, 28 April 1977, no 1633, p 1.
 * To conclude, there are substantial theological reasons, expressed in God's word and based on the divine creation of men and women in relationship, and confirmed in human nature, which are barriers to the ordination of women to the position of headship in the congregation.
 * Canon DB Knox, Minority report on ordination of women to the priesthood reproduced in The Australian Church Record, 28 April 1977, no 1633, p 3.

1980s

 * Because the humanity of Christ our High Priest includes male and female, it is thus urged that the ministerial priesthood should now be opened to women in order the more perfectly to represent Christ’s inclusive High Priesthood.
 * Archbishop Robert Runcie, "Archbishop of Canterbury’s letter to Cardinal Willebrands on ordination to the priesthood", ARCIC-II-47-3 (22 Nov. 1985). iarccum.org/doc/?d=765
 * 4. We believe 'these Orders of Ministers in Christ's Church: Bishops, Priests and Deacons' to have come down to us from apostolic times; and we do not consider that the churches of the Anglican Communion have authority to change the historic tradition of the Church that the Christian ministerial priesthood is male...While we recognize the many gifts which women contribute to the life of the Church, and we wish to affirm and encourage the development of ministries in which these gifts may be fully used for the building up of the Body of Christ and in Christian witness and service, the ordination of women to the presbyterate is clearly inconsistent with the tradition of the Church since New Testament times and is opposed by the greater part of the Church today. A grave situation has already been created. Full mutual recognition of presbyteral ministries no longer exists in the Anglican Communion. In certain places schism has been caused. If women are ordained to the episcopate we do not see how that can do other than call in question the continuance of the Anglican Communion.
 * The Lambeth Conference: A Declaration of Unity, Witness and Mission. Ash Wednesday, 1988, Certain Bishops in the Anglican Communion
 * it would be analogous to consecrating a meat pie on the altar of God to ordain a woman.
 * Father Ian Herring in "Interview, Father Ian Herring of the Anglican Church" (1987) in documentary The Fully Ordained Meat Pie. 1988. Full quote can be heard here


 * I simply took time to work through everything the Bible said about women. I discovered it was once again a surprising book. If I could communicate one thing to my evangelical friends about the ordination of women, it would be that not only have I not thrown out the Bible, I have been converted from a submissive woman into a simple Bible-believing Christian feminist by studying the word of God.
 * Rev Peta Sherlock in Field, ed. Fit for this Office: Women and Ordination. United States: Collins Dove, 1989.

1990s

 * Women don't want to be priests in order to be female patriarchs. We want to use power and understand power in an entirely different way. We want to be priests in order to enhance others' ability to use their gifts, to use power to empower, and this is a very threatening thing to the current system.
 * Rev Alison Cheek reported in 'Ordination of women 'to change the world', The Canberra Times (ACT: 1926 - 1995), 3 February 1992, p. 1., viewed 27 May 2023, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article133928596
 * Up until now the Church has been able to struggle on with an exclusively male priesthood systematically depriving itself of half of its potential talent. Today our horizon is expanding. Worlds of Christian service and ministry will open up that have not yet been dreamed of.
 * Peter Carnley, Anglican Archbishop of Perth and Primate of Australia in "The yellow wallpaper" sermon at the ordination of the first women priests in the Anglican church of Australia, 7 March 1992 in Carnley, P (2001) The yellow wallpaper and other sermons, HarperCollins, p90.
 * My support for the ordination of women is not in spite of, but because of, the teaching of the New Testament as a whole.
 * Right Reverend Keith Rayner, then Archbishop of Melbourne and Primate of Australia, speech at Melbourne Synod, reported in SEE, April 1992, p11
 * ...during the run-up to Lambeth 1968, prolonged reflection convinced me that there was no valid Biblical basis and no fundamental theological reason for denying the priesthood to women; that such ordinations were not against the divine order.
 * Archbishop Henry McAdoo in Anglicans and tradition and the ordination of women, Canterbury Press, 1997, p125
 * For many years now I have been persuaded from my reading of Scripture as the revealed Word of God that ordination to the Anglican priesthood (understood in an evangelical way) depends on a candidate's godliness and giftedness rather than gender...I am further persuaded that some of the key arguments opposing the ordination of women...are deeply flawed exegetically, theologically, philosophically and pastorally.
 * Graham Cole, Ridley College in The National Journal of the Movement for the Ordination of Women, October 1997: Incorporating Balaam's Ass-Sydney Synod edition. p10.

2000s

 * Most women, I find, actually don't want to be led by other women. They actually are more comfortable with male ministers than female ministers. And certainly men would be uncomfortable, as a general rule, under the leadership of a woman minister...I think it's part of human nature. I think it's the way God has wired us.
 * Bruce Ballantine-Jones in An Unholy Row, film, 11 May 2000, quote in transcript at 19:43.
 * If the heart of the incarnation is our Lord’s humanity then it is difficult to argue that only some human beings can represent Christ... As I continue to reflect on the nature of the incarnation and on the inclusiveness of the redemptive work of Christ I find it hard to argue that only males can be considered for the priesthood...The women I have ordained and the women who are serving as priests in my present diocese have a deep sense of being called by God and they have gifts that have brought rich blessings in the places where they minister.
 * Bishop David McCall in McCall, D 2002, ‘How did a traditionalist accept the ordination of women?’, St Mark’s Review, vol. 189, pp. 27–29
 * All I can do is put on the record that I would need to re-ordain any man purportedly ordained before a woman bishop before I could license him.
 * Bishop of The Murray, Right Rev Ross Davies, "Bishop rejects priests ordained by women" The Age, May 30, 2004
 * The whole matter takes an even more serious spiritual turn when one considers the sacramental consequences of a ‘purported’ ordination which is not valid. Women, according to classical catholic teaching, are not simply ‘preferably’ not called to be priests, but are actually unable to be ordained into the sacred priestly ministry. This means that many women, whatever else their fine and valuable spiritual and pastoral gifts might be, and however much they may seem ‘priestly’, are not actually priests.
 * Bishop of The Murray, Right Rev Ross Davies, Statement to clergy and laity of the Murray, 2005
 * I am not afraid to take up the authority of being a priest, but there is more to leadership than telling people what to think and what to do.
 * The Very Rev Peta Sherlock, Dean of the Anglican Diocese of Bendigo, "Twenty years a priest: to desire God" in Preachers, prophets and heretics: Anglican women's ministry, UNSW Press, 2012
 * I had a strong sense of calling to the ordained ministry and that had been affirmed by the Church...I saw it as important that we image God both in the female form and in the male, was following that calling and walking that path...Priesthood for me is about serving, it's about loving, it's about imaging in God and working for justice and peace. It was allowing me to be fully who I was called to be.
 * The Very Rev Susanna Pain, former Dean of Sale Cathedral, in One for the ladies: 20 years of women's ordination in Australia (audio and text), 9 March 2012


 * In brief to resist the ordination of women as priests on the basis that it undermines the unity of the Church simply does not square with what unity actually looks like on the ground in the twenty-first century global Christianity. Indeed, women priests provide a remarkable window into other dimensions of the unity of the gospel that resonates powerfully and authentically with our current cultural context. It is a development that we can confidently embrace for the sake of the coming one church of Jesus Christ.
 * Rt Rev’d Dr Stephen Pickard in Synod Address 2022: Canon Theologian on the Ordination of Women, 30 May 2022
 * I am announcing that I am opening a discussion on the Ordination of Women in this Diocese...I will then allow appropriate legislation to come forward to the next Synod to permit the adoption of the General Synod Canon which enables women to be priested in the Diocese, and we will have a full debate at the next Synod on that, and I will allow a vote. The Synod will have the opportunity to debate it, and to vote on it at that Synod. Whatever the decision of Synod I will support that decision. If it passes, I will not block it.
 * The Right Reverend Keith Dalby, Bishop of The Murray in Synod Address 2022, 30 May 2022


 * For many women in this diocese...you have endured testing and trials...and I wish to apologise to the three of you and all the other women who have been on the receiving end of abuse and vitriol and a determination to deny your sense of vocation within this diocese and all because you have tried to respond to a call of God that you believe is on your lives. And I would also like to apologise for my part in that denial of your vocation and apologise to you personally today for my involvement in that.
 * The Right Reverend Keith Dalby, Bishop of The Murray in sermon at the service in Christ the King church, Mt Barker, to ordain the first women priests in the diocese, 12 August 2023.

1930s

 * We are asking you to accept the principle that no woman should he debarred from the Christian ministry merely on the ground of her sex. The report proposes we should start with the two existing ministries of women in our church — the deaconesses order and the women in the mission field — and bring them together into a new order which should meet in annual convocation and have considerable authority in the direction of women's work. Having done that, the report further suggests that from this new order it should be possible for a woman to offer herself for those tests for the ordained and itinerant ministry of our church for which men offer themselves from year to year.
 * Rev G E Hickman Johnson at the Methodist Conference, London, reported in 'Sex Bar', Noosa Advocate and Cooroora Advertiser (Qld.: 1929 - 1934), 6 September, p. 4.

1990s

 * If the liberation of women is not proclaimed, the church’s proclamation cannot be about divine liberation. If the church does not share in the liberation struggle of Black women, its liberation struggle is not authentic. If women are oppressed, the church cannot possibly be “a visible manifestation that the gospel is a reality”—for the gospel cannot be real in that context. One can see the contradictions between the church’s language or proclamation of liberation and its action by looking both at the status of Black women in the church as laity and Black women in the ordained ministry of the church.
 * Jacquelyn Grant, "Black Theology and the Black Woman," in Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought, 1995, p. 325