Bishops Geralyn Wolf and Ann Tottenham at St Anne's Soho

On Monday 5th July 2004 Bishop Geralyn Wolf, Bishop of Rhode Island USA and Bishop Ann Tottenham, Bishop of Credit Valley, Diocese of Toronto, Canada, spoke and answered questions at St Ann's Church Soho, 55 Dean Street, London W1. Later in the week Bishop Geralyn was one of the keynote speakers at the annual Conference of the Society of Catholic Priests in Canterbury.

Sally Barnes writes: Bishop Ann spoke with considerable strength, humour and conviction. She told us, that as a bishop in her relationships with male and female clergy she related more confidently to some because she was a woman and less confidently to some because she was a woman and that’s the way of the world - “it is not a big deal”! She felt the next generation doesn’t know what we are talking about. If we want the Church to look antique we can carry on as we are. It feels like Galileo fighting with the Pope! Bishop Ann pointed out that when she came to Southwark Cathedral to celebrate recently, she barely made it as it had to be confirmed that she would not wear any Episcopal attire and must not have been ordained by a woman! Bishop Ann told us that there were sixteen women bishops world wide, nine of whom are diocesan. The numbers of people they had ordained were not inconsequential.

Bishop Geralyn talked of her pastoral care of the parishes in her diocese and how she was received. She commented on how she can be perceived as Bishop by those who think women should always be kind, sweet and nice and are then shocked when she came down pretty hard on boundary violations, receiving the comment, ”but women are supposed to understand”!  She advised us that we must be careful when we in England get our first woman bishop as we must not think that she will necessarily be liberal or think as many of us might think about different issues.  When a woman bishop is chosen it will be hard for her. We must get to know her. She may have to “buy” straight into the House of Bishops to have credibility and she is going to have a hard time. She is not just going to have to deal with Forward-in-Faith but will have to deal with Bishops-in-Faith too.  She will need our support whether we agree with all her views or not. One thing all three bishops commented on was that in Canada and the States there are no, so called, “flying bishops” with the undermining difficulties these bring within the Church of England. Over ninety percent of the bishops did not support episcopal oversight. Instead they favoured bishops reaching a trust and understanding about the disaffected parishes. England’s example was pointed out as a bad one.  While there are no “no-go” parishes or areas for the  women bishops, it is clearly difficult for them visiting parishes with disaffected priests to take part in a function or activity. In this context Bishop Geralyn stated that, “we have won the war so I don’t mind losing some of the battles. Christian charity must come first”.  However, all three independently talked of the pastoral care they arranged for those few priests who found it hard to accept their ministries; an action that led to one parish priest commenting on the generosity of spirit shown by the bishop concerned. 

We were all invigorated by the visits of these strong and able women of faith. We wish them well and hope that they keep on visiting these shores especially when our first woman bishop is appointed to give her the support and encouragement she will undoubtedly need.

 (Report first published in London WATCH Newsletter)