Bye-Bye Bishops

You may remember that back in July, I wrote a long post about the battle over women bishops in the Church of England. The C of E’s governing body had voted down a proposal that would have compromised with misogynists within the church by creating a system of second-class citizenship for women bishops and allowing dioceses who refused to accept them to be ministered to by male “flying bishops” instead.

Earlier this month the Guardian reported that:

The archbishop of Canterbury today accepted “with regret” the resignation of Church of England bishops who are converting to Roman Catholicism in protest over the ordination of women and joining a network that will allow them to retain some Anglican traditions. (ed: I kinda love that “with regret” is in scare quotes, because it makes it sound appropriately ironic.) The move involves three serving bishops, who minister to parishes opposed to female clergy, and two retired bishops….All wanted more accommodation from the Anglican church for opponents of women clergy.

“Accomodation” should also be in scare quotes, because what these bishops wanted was to overhaul the Church’s power structure so that they could shut out women. The traditionalist bishops have been threatening to convert to Catholicism for years, safe in the knowledge that if they couldn’t freely exercise their misogyny in the Anglican Church, they’d be welcome to do it in the Catholic Church. One of the converting bishops is John Broadhurst, Bishop of Fulham, whom I wrote about in my original post. (Summary: he’s a woman-hating dick of the first order) and I can’t help but think that the Church of England—and the entire Anglican Communion—will be vastly improved by his absence. In fact, the defection of the bishops is exactly what needed to happen—don’t let the church doors hit your ass on your way out, fellas.