Word: bishops
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...election of Barbara Harris to be the first woman bishop in America's Episcopal Church, and hence the first in world Anglicanism, has produced great joy among feminists. It has also fostered widespread ecclesiastical warfare against the choice of Harris, a 58-year-old native of Philadelphia, to become the next suffragan bishop of Massachusetts. Conservatives have mounted an unprecedented campaign to prevent consent for the Boston election, which must be approved by the "standing committees" of a majority of U.S. dioceses. But by last week Harris had backing from 56 of the needed 60 dioceses, meaning that...
...Harris' opponents, including six bishops who head dioceses, are a small if troublesome faction. But elsewhere fully 20 of the 27 autonomous Anglican branches forbid women priests and will doubtless reject women bishops as well. The world leader of Anglicanism, Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie, has been forced willy-nilly to join the rejectionists in his role as Primate of the Church of England. Runcie declared last month that unless church law changes, neither he nor any other English hierarch may recognize a woman bishop or the priests she ordains. Communion between the English and American churches survives, Runcie stated...
Even if she were not a woman, the elevation of Harris would have caused a ruckus. In fact, gender was barely mentioned during the anti-Harris campaign. For openers, she is apparently the first divorced person ever elected an Anglican bishop. In most nations, that would have prevented her from even becoming a priest. Equally remarkable, says editor H. Boone Porter of the Living Church, she lacks the "conventional qualifications" for the office. Not to say that Harris, who was the top public relations executive for Sun Oil before she decided to become a priest, lacks substantial achievements...
While still a laywoman, Harris led the procession at the 1974 protest ritual in which her church's first women priests were illicitly ordained. During eight years in the priesthood, she has developed a reputation as a bright, articulate activist. Harris, who will be her church's 29th black bishop, is the convener of a coalition of minority and social-action caucuses that seeks to prod the Episcopal Church into what Harris calls "an increased advocacy role and some real risk taking." A prime risk that she favors: acceptance of practicing homosexual clergy...
...another cigarette and looked at the dental-supply company's bill again. The minutes went by with their fingers to their lips. Then there was a small knocking on wood. It was a blond. A blond to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window. She smelled the way the Taj Mahal looked by moonlight. She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket. "Cops are just people," she said irrelevantly. "They start out that way, I've heard...