As the Church of England tackles the fallout from a series of sexual-abuse scandals, women bishops have been notably prominent and outspoken pushing for accountability and better safeguarding.
Amid a decades-long battle for more gender equality within Anglicanism’s mother church, some see women’s growing profiles and activism as significant in this latest crisis, at a time when more are becoming priests and more training to join the clergy.
“My own experience has been that female bishops have shown far greater levels of empathy for those hurt by the Church and also awareness of how Church power structures can oppress people,” Jayne Ozanne, a former member of its general synod, told AFP.
“I’m not sure if it’s because they themselves have so often faced discrimination or because they are more emotionally sensitive,” added Ozanne, a longtime LGBTQ campaigner.
Bishop Helen-Ann Hartley has been among those in the spotlight in recent months.
After an independent probe last year criticised former archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby’s handling of an abuse case spanning decades, she was the most senior clergy member to insist he resign. Welby eventually left the role last month.
Hartley has been one of the most high-profile critics of his interim successor, Stephen Cottrell, who has faced an immediate backlash over his conduct in another abuse scandal.
She is also credited with broadening the debate to include concerns around how senior male clergy within the Church wield power.
– ‘Not be quiet’ –
Meanwhile, Bishop Joanne Grenfell has been at the forefront of the renewed bid for beefed-up protections for victims and others, in her role as lead for safeguarding.
She voiced her frustrations this week after the synod — the Church’s national assembly, which meets several times a year — rejected tough new rules, opting instead for softer measures.
Rose Hudson-Wilkin, a black bishop born and raised in Jamaica, is seen as another trailblazer, in particular around racism within the Church, telling the Guardian in December that it “still exists”.
“We will not be quiet, and I will not be quiet,” she told the paper regarding political activism.
The Church of England, the established state church dating back to King Henry VIII’s split from Roman Catholicism in the 1530s, only began allowing women bishops in 2014 after years of bitter factional wrangling.
Some churches around the Anglican world — which collectively boasts tens of millions of followers in more than 165 countries — had long permitted women bishops, with the first appointed in the United States in 1989.
Around a third of England’s 108 bishops now are women, with a similar proportion among priests, after women clergy were first permitted in the early 1990s.
There are also now more women training for the priesthood than men, according to Church statistics.
“It will be a few years before they become the majority — but it will happen at some point down the line,” explained Ralph Norman, of Canterbury Christ Church University in southeast England.
However, Grenfell noted that “it doesn’t quite feel like that at the moment”.
“There’s still many more male bishops than female bishops, particularly diocesan bishops. I think there’s still quite a long way to go,” she told AFP on the sidelines of the synod gathering, which ended on Friday.
– ‘Way to go’ –
Meanwhile, on the hot-button issue of historical sex abuse and safeguarding, she and others stressed that gender may not necessarily be the determining factor in how clergy respond.
“It’s not just about gender,” said Helen King, an academic and lay synod member.
“What survivors welcome is someone who has a personal touch, who interacts with survivors rather than just talking at a national and structural level.”
Jane Richards, a priest in Chelmsford, southeast England, was among those to note the danger of “stereotyping” when it comes to the prominence of women bishops in the debates around safeguarding and historical abuse.
“I don’t think she’s driving it because she’s a woman,” she said of Grenfell. “It’s because she’s qualified.”
Grenfell herself was eager to highlight that “there are plenty of men who are really supportive of this work too, so it’s not just women”.
But hinting at the legacy of centuries of patriarchy within the Church, she noted women clergy have had to confront “the kind of culture that we live and breathe” when approaching safeguarding.
“That’s why I think there is quite a deep concern about how you hold power, how we’re seen to respond to people being critical, how we respond to victims and survivors,” Grenfell added.
“It’s incredibly important. So I’m grateful for my female colleagues who are really pushing this along.”