The stained-glass ceiling has been shattered - Opinion - theage.com.au

The stained-glass ceiling has been shattered - Opinion - theage.com.au


appointment of two women bishops.

Muriel Porter
April 28, 2008


Anglicans rejoice at the historic appointment of two women bishops.

CONGRATULATIONS to Barbara Darling on becoming Melbourne's first woman bishop. Congratulations? It doesn't seem the right word somehow. It is too ordinary for such an extraordinary event.

It does nothing to convey the excitement, the delight, the teary joy so many of us, both women and men, are feeling at the news of this historic appointment.

It comes as the culmination of a special period in history for women in this country. Quentin Bryce's appointment as the nation's first woman governor-general came just two weeks ago, a day after the news that Kay Goldsworthy had been appointed a bishop in Perth. The sound of shattering glass ceilings — stained-glass ceilings included — is welcome background music.

In this time of great joy, it is tempting to forget the long, tortuous road Darling, Goldsworthy and other church women have had to journey to reach this happy day.

More than 30 years ago Melbourne Anglicans first called for women to be accepted as bishops. When the diocesan synod issued its confident call in 1976, Darling was a young woman recently arrived in Melbourne to study theology. She was soon teaching male candidates for the ordained ministry and giving them many of the skills they needed as they prepared to become priests — and some even to become bishops — decades before she was able to follow in their footsteps.

No one in 1976 imagined how long and painful the road would be for women like Darling as they began to seek ordination themselves. Thank goodness she came to Melbourne. It is not by accident that both Darling and her sister bishop, Kay Goldsworthy — a native Melburnian — were first ordained here.

While Darling's home diocese of Sydney has progressively hardened its heart against women in church leadership — and much else besides — Melbourne has been the engine room of the women's movement in the Anglican Church. Its archbishops have been unfailingly supportive, its clergy and lay people mostly so.

In the face of Sydney's unyielding opposition, Melbourne has constantly called on the national Anglican General Synod to open the door to women as deacons, priests and bishops.

Even here it was not easy for either woman in the beginning. Some male students walked out when Darling first preached in 1976. Others, men and women, resisted their early appointments in parishes. Every single step of the way has been contested for these pioneers.