Some of you haven't been able to open the link on Facebook that I posted tonight, so here is the article in its entirety. Ruth's blog has been moved behind the "paywall" at The Times and cannot be accessed without getting a subscription. So this is her last post on the Typepad blog of the same name, "Articles of Faith".
Catherine
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June 18, 2010
Mitregate: The Sequel
Note: This will be the last post at the blog at Typepad. Articles of Faith is the first of The Times blogs to go permanently behind the paywall and onto a different platform. You can find it here.
Thank you for Come to the Table for this picture by Andrew Gerns of Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, or 'Kat in a Hat' as she is now known, carrying The Mitre:
Other women bishops who have celebrated at Southwark, complete with mitre, include Bishop Ann Tottenham, retired suffragan bishop of Toronto. She presided and preached on Saturday November 9th 2002. Bishop Ann, incidentally, is a 'real' lady bishop. She is Lady Ann, daughter of the 8th Marquess of Ely. But this doesn't excuse Lambeth allowing her to wear a mitre and not Bishop Katharine.
Read on for what Dean Colin Slee told The Times today.
Thank you for Come to the Table for this picture by Andrew Gerns of Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, or 'Kat in a Hat' as she is now known, carrying The Mitre:
Other women bishops who have celebrated at Southwark, complete with mitre, include Bishop Ann Tottenham, retired suffragan bishop of Toronto. She presided and preached on Saturday November 9th 2002. Bishop Ann, incidentally, is a 'real' lady bishop. She is Lady Ann, daughter of the 8th Marquess of Ely. But this doesn't excuse Lambeth allowing her to wear a mitre and not Bishop Katharine.
Read on for what Dean Colin Slee told The Times today.
At the back left of this picture, taken at Salisbury cathedral just before the 2008 Lambeth Conference, is Bishop Katharine resplendent in a glorious gold mitre. Do you think she took it off when she went inside and processed down the aisle. I don't think so.... So why the mitre ban at Southwark? Below, Colin explains.
The Dean of Southwark said US Bishop Geralyn Wolfe also preached but did not celebrate on 25th November 2001. 'I can say that female bishops have preached relatively recently in both Salisbury and Gloucester Dioceses and worn their mitres with the respective permission of the Diocesans.'
Regarding the two women bishops who processed with mitres at Southwark, Colin adds: 'I was not present on either occasion, it would seem to me that permission from Lambeth (presumably that was George Carey) was not sought, or Lambeth made no fuss. Our Diocesan was however present when Anne Tottenham was here.
'It all goes to show what a silly boy I was to be properly courteous to the ABC and ask permission in the first place! But I can also say that my definition that an 'Episcopal Act' is consecrating, ordaining, confirming might have been a wiser course of action. AND I think the other hats in today's Times are so much more fun.'
He's talking about Ascot of course.
And just to be truly ecumenical, I'm going to link now to Damian Thompson's blog on mitregate. In his own inimitable style, he gives great background to the stylistic elements of this story:
'Note the bishop’s shirt underneath her alb. (A quick footnote: until a few decades ago, some evangelical bishops would have their mitres carried in front of them rather than wear them – not because they doubted their episcopal orders, but because mitres as hats as opposed to symbols were popish.) However, Dean Slee (an old mate of mine who wants to see Anglicanism follow the logic of liberal Protestantism properly and quickly) does personally recognise Jefferts Schori as a bishop, even if he’s not ready to pick a fight with Lambeth over headgear. So, she’s a bishop in Southwark Cathedral, a simple priest in Lambeth Palace, and a lay person masquerading as a priest in Southwark’s Forward in Faith parishes. There may even be one or two churches which, adhering to the position taken by some Anglo-Catholics in the 1980s, recognise her as a deacon but not a priest.'
Some of the comments at Holy Smoke are quite fun as well.
The Dean of Southwark said US Bishop Geralyn Wolfe also preached but did not celebrate on 25th November 2001. 'I can say that female bishops have preached relatively recently in both Salisbury and Gloucester Dioceses and worn their mitres with the respective permission of the Diocesans.'
Regarding the two women bishops who processed with mitres at Southwark, Colin adds: 'I was not present on either occasion, it would seem to me that permission from Lambeth (presumably that was George Carey) was not sought, or Lambeth made no fuss. Our Diocesan was however present when Anne Tottenham was here.
'It all goes to show what a silly boy I was to be properly courteous to the ABC and ask permission in the first place! But I can also say that my definition that an 'Episcopal Act' is consecrating, ordaining, confirming might have been a wiser course of action. AND I think the other hats in today's Times are so much more fun.'
He's talking about Ascot of course.
And just to be truly ecumenical, I'm going to link now to Damian Thompson's blog on mitregate. In his own inimitable style, he gives great background to the stylistic elements of this story:
'Note the bishop’s shirt underneath her alb. (A quick footnote: until a few decades ago, some evangelical bishops would have their mitres carried in front of them rather than wear them – not because they doubted their episcopal orders, but because mitres as hats as opposed to symbols were popish.) However, Dean Slee (an old mate of mine who wants to see Anglicanism follow the logic of liberal Protestantism properly and quickly) does personally recognise Jefferts Schori as a bishop, even if he’s not ready to pick a fight with Lambeth over headgear. So, she’s a bishop in Southwark Cathedral, a simple priest in Lambeth Palace, and a lay person masquerading as a priest in Southwark’s Forward in Faith parishes. There may even be one or two churches which, adhering to the position taken by some Anglo-Catholics in the 1980s, recognise her as a deacon but not a priest.'
Some of the comments at Holy Smoke are quite fun as well.
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