What would women be doing in the
Episcopal Church in 2005?

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illustration - EWHP History Conference - Dallas 2005
photo courtesy oh Joan Gundersen

Background: The United States is involved in a continuing conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan as part of a "War on Terror." Eleven women bishops from the U.S., Canada and New Zealand attend the 1998 Lambeth Conference. In response to state actions in Vermont and Massachusetts, many other states are passing laws designed to define marriage as between a man and woman and limit the use of civil unions by gays and lesbians. Actions that supported the Episcopal Church's commitment to full inclusion in the church has led to controversy within the church and the Anglican Communion.

• Women continue their parish ministries and guilds, leading in parish life and christian education, serving at diocesan conventions and provincial synods, publishing religious materials, teaching in church schools and Sunday Schools, serving as organists and choir directors or members,  serving as domestic and foreign missionaries, joining and founding religious orders.
• Canons forbid exclusion from the ordination process on the grounds of race, sex, age, or sexual orientation, but three dioceses continue to refuse to recognize women's ordination to the priesthood three decades after the first ordinations.
  
• Twelve women have been consecrated as bishops in the Episcopal church and another has been elected and awaits confirmation and consecration.  They include African American and Native American women.
• Women are serving in all parts of the ordained ministry, including as cathedral deans, canons, chaplains, missionaries, and parish ministry.
• A woman is one of the candidates for Presiding Bishop.
  
• The Council of Women's Ministries representing the groups formed and run by women has reorganized as the Council of Episcopal Women's Organizations.
• Women are part of the Episcopal Church delegation to the Anglican Consultative Council.
• A lay woman is serving as vice president of the House of Deputies.
  

This web page is maintained by Webster Joan R. Gundersen
for the Episcopal Women's History Project.