CANTERBURY, England – The Anglican Church's most senior female bishop said she believed that one day the church will be led by a female Archbishop of Canterbury.
“The signposts are pointing in one direction,” said Victoria Matthews, for 15 years a bishop in Canada and now moving to minister in Christchurch, New Zealand.
“I would be very surprised if it wasn't accepted worldwide,” she said Tuesday at the Lambeth Conference, the once-in-a-decade gathering of Anglican bishops from around the globe. “But it would be difficult to say the timeline. A third of Anglican provinces have now given permission for women bishops.”
The issue of female bishops has sparked controversy in the Church of England, the Anglican mother church, with threats of mass walkouts by traditionalists fiercely opposed to them.
The Church of England's governing body confirmed this month that it would ordain women bishops but also opted for a code of practice that would seek to accommodate objectors.
Anglicans in Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand already have had female bishops. The U.S. Episcopal Church is headed by Katharine Jefferts Schori.
One in six of English parish priests is a woman and, more than a decade after women were first ordained, liberals say it is insulting not to admit them to positions of power.
Traditionalists say that, as Jesus Christ's apostles were all men, there is no precedent for female bishops.
If the compromise wins full acceptance and the scheduled timetable is mapped out by 2012, the Archbishop of Canterbury, spiritual leader of the world's 77 million Anglicans, could one day be a woman.
“Once they are in the episcopate, it is entirely possible,” Matthews said.
The decision by the Church of England on female bishops provoked a frosty response from the Vatican, which called it a historic break from Christian doctrine that will drive Anglicans and Catholics further apart.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams is fighting fellow clerics on another divisive front.
The Lambeth Conference was hit by mass defections by conservatives, mainly from Africa, Asia and South America, who were vehemently opposed to the ordination of openly gay U.S. Bishop Gene Robinson and the blessing of same-sex marriages in Canada.
Sudan's Anglican church leader called Tuesday for Robinson's resignation to save Anglicanism from schism.
“He should resign for the sake of the church,” Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul told reporters. “God is not making a mistake creating Adam and Eve. He would have created two Adams if he wanted.
“We are for the Anglican world and we want the Anglican world to remain united. Over 300 bishops have stayed away from this conference because of Gene Robinson. The norms of the Anglican communion have been violated.”
Williams decided not to invite Robinson to the Lambeth Conference, but he still came to the cathedral city Monday to meet supporters on the fringes of the summit.
In a joint statement, Sudanese bishops accused North American church leaders of ridiculing Anglicanism and destroying its credibility by ordaining gay American clergy and blessing same-sex unions in Canada.
Williams launched the conference Monday by dismissing talk of schism and urging dissident conservatives to remain within the fold.
“We are sorry you are not here,” he said of the conservatives who staged their own conference last month and decided to set up their own council of bishops to provide an alternative to churches preaching what they called a “false gospel” of sexual immorality.
But Williams did not see the end in sight for the 450-year-old church, which boasts almost 80 million followers.
“Are we heading for schism? Well, let's see. If this is the end of the Anglican Communion, I don't think anyone has told most of the people here,” he said.
