Feminist Rhetoric and the Ordination of Women
In March 1992, I attended a historic event: the ordination of Australia’s first Anglican women priests. Not long before the event, I was gathered with the other clergy around Archbishop Peter Carnley when he announced his intention to ordain them without waiting for the Appellate Tribunal, the Church’s High Court, to offer its view on the legality of doing so. The time for waiting was over, he said, the Holy Spirit was speaking through him! In his ordination homily, he used feminist rhetoric to frame his message: this was about rescuing the suicidal woman, trapped in the attic against her will, madly peeling away the yellowed wallpaper. What’s beneath this rhetoric: justice, equality, freedom, the Gospel, clerical power, or just an unpapered wall?
Kay Goldsworthy can tell us. She was ordained in that first group of women. In May 2008, she was installed as Assistant Bishop in Perth. In March 2015, she was installed as Bishop of Gippsland. In February 2018, she was installed…
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