Edited by Michael P.Hamilton and Nancy S.Montgomery, Morehouse Barlow Co, 1975.
Republished on our website with the necessary permissions.

Appendices

Contents

A. American Church Union Council Resolution on the Ordination and Consecration of Women

B. Orthodox Statement on the Ordination of Women —From the Orthodox-Anglican Consultation of June 2, 1973

C. An Open Letter from the Right Reverend Daniel Corrigan, the Right Reverend Robert DeWitt and the Right Reverend Edward R- Welles II

D. Final Report of the Committee on Resolutions, Special Meeting of the House of Bishops, Chicago, Illinois, August 1974

E. A Report on the Validity of the Philadelphia Ordinations (signed by) The Reverend Richard A. Norris Jr., the Reverend Eugene R. Fairweather, the Reverend J. E. Griffiss, the Reverend Albert T. Mollegen

F. The Ecumenical Impact of the Proposed Ordination of Women —A Statement by the Joint Commission on Ecumenical Relations of the Episcopal Church —adopted January 30, 1975

APPENDIX A

American Church Union Council Resolution On the Ordination and Consecration of Women

A Resolution adopted unanimously by the 1972 Annual Meeting of the ACU Council, in Schenectady, New York, 11 October 1972.

Whereas we, the assembled Council of the American Church Union, believe that one of the most potentially divisive issues facing the Episcopal Church today is the consideration of the Ordination of Women to the Sacred Priesthood;

And Whereas, the Anglican Consultative Council meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, in April 1971 voted to recommend the Ordination of Women to the Priesthood by a margin of 24-22;

And Whereas, Anglicans have been led by certain press reporting of this vote to believe that the ACC provided an overwhelming mandate to ordain women to the Priesthood;

And Whereas, the Anglican Bishop of Hong Kong has given cause for a breach of communion with him and his Diocese by the unauthorized attempt at ordaining two women;

And Whereas, there are many reasons (psychological, sociological, ecumenical, Biblical, traditional and theological) against ordination of women to the Priesthood and the Episcopate;

And Whereas, in this time of renewal and change it is necessary to re-affirm the Apostolic tradition of the Ministry;

And Whereas, the recent Papal Decree defining the role of women in the Roman Communion (which also indicates that women will not be ordained to the Roman Catholic Priesthood) results in profound ecumenical implications as regards any attempt to ordain women in the Episcopal Church;

Therefore, Be It Resolved that this Council petition the General Convention of 1973 that it not alter or allow this position to be compromised or lost by the admission of women to the Priesthood or the Episcopate in order that this branch of the Catholic Church be not torn with the tragedy of schism;

And Be It Further Resolved that this Council provide for a continuing committee to educate members of our Church regarding this divisive issue and that this committee diligently publicize and articulate this position within the life of our Church in the remaining time before the General Convention of 1973.

Correspondence should be directed to: Executive Director
American Church Union
60 Rockledge Dr.
Pelham Manor, New York 10803

APPENDIX B

Orthodox Statement On The Ordination Of Women from the Orthodox-Anglican Consultation, June 2, 1973

1. God created mankind as "male and female," establishing a diversity of functions and gifts; these functions and gifts are complementary but not all are interchangeable: they presuppose a role of headship for man and a different but no less important role for woman as a guardian, witness and channel of life. There is every reason for Christians to oppose current trends which tend to make men and women interchangeable in their functions and roles, and thus lead to the dehumanization of life.

2. The biblical, conciliar, patristic and canonical evidence confirms that only men are eligible for the offices of bishop and priest. This scriptural and traditional evidence —reflecting and protecting the order of creation described above —cannot be challenged or relativized by references to historical or social changes, unless one rejects the very idea of God's Revelation in Christ once for all, transmitted to us by His Apostles and by the Church.

3. The Orthodox Church recognizes a woman, the Holy Virgin Mary, as the human being closest to God. It is clear, therefore, that there cannot be any question about any inferiority of women in the eyes of God. The importance of recognizing the role of women in the life of the Church can and must be discussed and studied among Christians.

4. It is evident that if the Anglican communion takes the decisive action of admitting women to the priesthood and the episcopate the issue will involve not only a point of church discipline, but the basis of the Christian faith as expressed in the Church's ministries. It will obviously have a decisively negative effect on the issue of the recognition of Anglican Orders and on the future of Anglican-Orthodox dialogue in general.

APPENDIX C

An Open Letter

On Monday, July 29, 1974, The Feasts of Sts. Mary and Martha, God willing, we intend to ordain to the sacred priesthood some several women deacons. We want to make known as clearly and as widely as we can the reflections on Christian obedience which have led us to this action.

We are painfully conscious of the diversity of thinking in our Church on this issue, and have been deeply sobered by that fact. We are acutely aware that this issue involves theological considerations, that it involves biblical considerations, that it involves considerations of Church tradition, and that it raises the vexing question of amicable consensus in our household of faith.

We are convinced that all these factors have been given due consideration by the Church at large, and by us. We note that the House of Bishops is on record as being in favor of the ordination of women. We note that a majority of the clergy and laity in the House of Deputies is also on record as being in favor, even though an inequitable rule of procedure in that House has frustrated the will of the majority.

All of the foregoing factors, by themselves, would not necessarily dictate the action we intend. Nor, even, would this intended action necessarily be required by the painful fact that we know pastorally the injustice, the hurt, the offense to women which is occasioned by the present position of our Church on this issue.

However, there is a ruling factor which does require this action on our part. It is our obedience to the Lordship of Christ, our response to the sovereignty of His Spirit for the Church.

One of the chief marks of the Church is its being the community of the Resurrection. Ours is a risen Lord. He was raised in the power of the Spirit so that we might participate, however inadequately, in His triumph against sin and separation, proclaim the good news of His victory, and occasionally ourselves walk in newness of life. His Spirit is the Lord of the Church. Hearing His command, we can heed no other. We gladly join ourselves with those who in other times and places, as well as here and now, have sought obedience to that same Spirit.

This action is therefore intended as an act of obedience to the Spirit. By the same token, it is intended as an act of solidarity with those in whatever institution, in whatever part of the world, of whatever stratum of society, who in their search for freedom, for liberation, for dignity, are moved by that same Spirit to struggle against sin, to proclaim that victory, to attempt to walk in newness of life.

We pray this action may be, as we intend it, a proclamation of the Gospel —that God has acted for us, and expects us, in obedience, to respond with appropriate action.

The Rt. Rev. Daniel Corrigan
The Rt. Rev. Robert DeWitt
The Rt. Rev. Edward R. Welles, II

APPENDIX D

Special Meeting of the House of Bishops, Chicago, Illinois, August 14-15, 1974

Final Report of the Committee on Resolutions

The House of Bishops in no way seeks to minimize the genuine anguish that so many in the Church feel at the refusal to date of the Church to grant authority for women to be considered as Candidates for Ordination to the Priesthood and Episcopacy. Each of us in his own way shares in that anguish. Neither do we question the sincerity of the motives of the four Bishops and eleven Deacons who acted as they did in Philadelphia. Yet in God's work, ends and means must be consistent with one another. Furthermore, the wrong means to reach a desired end may expose the Church to serious consequences unforseen and undesired by anyone.

Whereas our Lord has called us to walk the way of the Cross through the questions and issues before us resulting from the service in Philadelphia on July 29, 1974, and

Whereas the Gospel compels us to be as concerned with equality, freedom, justice and reconciliation and above all love, as with the order of our common life and the exercise of legitimate authority, therefore, be it

Resolved, that the House of Bishops, having heard from Bishops Corrigan, DeWitt, Welles and Ramos, the reasons for their action, express our understanding of their feelings and concern, but express our disagreement with acting in violation of the collegiality of the House of Bishops, as well as the legislative process of the whole Church.

Further, we express our conviction that the necessary conditions for valid ordination to the Priesthood in the Episcopal Church were not fulfilled on the occasion in question; since we are convinced that a bishop's authority to ordain can be effectively exercised only in and for a community which has authorized him to act for them, and as a member of the Episcopal College; and since there was a failure to act in fulfillment of constitutional and canonical requirements for ordination, and be it further

Resolved, that we believe it is urgent that the General Convention reconsider at the Minneapolis meeting the question of the Ordination of Women to the Priesthood, and be it

Resolved, that this House call upon all concerned to wait upon and abide by whatever action the General Convention decided upon in this regard.

(This motion passed by the following vote: "yes"-128; "no"-9; abstained-10)

APPENDIX E

A Report on The Validity of the Philadelphia Ordinations

(1)

This report is a response to the request of the Bishop and Standing Committee of the Diocese of Rochester "for an opinion as to the validity of (the Rev. Merrill Bittner's) orders." Ms. Bittner being one of the eleven deacons who irregularly underwent the rite of ordination to the presbyterate in the Church of the Advocate, Philadelphia, on 29 July 1974, at the hands of Bishops Corrigan, DeWitt and Welles. The opinion has been sought by reason of the judgment of the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church that on the occasion in question "the necessary conditions for valid ordination to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church were not fulfilled." The question of validity in this case is thus the question whether presbyteral order was in fact sacramentally conferred upon the eleven deacons by the action of the three ordaining bishops in Philadelphia.

(2)

A sacramental act is said to be "valid" when it truly signifies and conveys the reality it is meant to signify and convey.

With all sacraments the reality in question is a certain kind, or mode, of membership in and identification with the crucified and risen Christ, in whom God has effectively declared his eternal purpose for humanity by reconciling us to himself and to one another in a new covenant of grace.

For this reason the ultimate and necessary condition of the validity of any sacramental act is the presence of God working through the Holy Spirit the identity of men and women in and with his incarnate Word. The sacrament "works" objectively because God in Christ "works" it through the Spirit in accordance with his promise. This divine presence and activity is signified and conveyed through human actions which symbolize it because they are the covenanted means of its focal expression: in short, because they are the human actions to which God's promise is attached.

Consequently, the proximate and sufficient condition of the validity of a sacramental act is found in the carrying out of the human actions which constitute the effective, because covenanted, sign of the active presence of God in Christ. The question of validity, then, at this level, is the question whether a certain action, considered simply as a human action, is or is not the covenanted sign which it seems or pretends to be; and what one must know in order to answer the question is what the conditions are under which a given action may qualify as such a sign.

(3)

It is at least possible that there is available a quick response to this question —a response which alleges in effect that a valid sacramental action is simply a sacramental action which can be recognized or acknowledged without doubt as an official public action of the Church.

In support of this position it may be urged that the Church, considered as an organized human community, is itself called out and established by God to be not merely the beneficiary of salvation, but also the historical sign and witness of the Christ in whom God has effectively declared his purpose for all peoples. The Church, then, is the community in which God's covenant of grace is visibly and historically present. As such it is the sole context in which human actions may in fact be or become covenanted signs which convey the reality of humanity's new relationship to God in Christ. Valid sacraments are thus sacraments which the Church acknowledges to be so; and sacramental actions which violate the historical community of the covenant, or which occur in some way apart from it, are invalid.

(4)

This thesis both states and implies important truths. The Church is the people in which, through God's calling, the identity of humanity in Christ is proclaimed by being embodied. It is, therefore, the historical manifestation of the end to which God is bringing his whole creation. The sacraments, accordingly, through which people's membership in the crucified and risen Christ is objectively proclaimed and realized, are fundamentally ecclesial realities. They are proper to the Church in its character as the visible historical "showing" of God's covenant with humanity. Like the preaching of the Word, they are actions of the Church which at the same time constitute it.

The thesis, however, contains an ambiguity which must be clarified if it is not to be misleading. We say that the Church is an historical community which bears and manifests the eternal purpose of God for humanity: koinonia in Christ. The fact that this is true, however —and true in and in spite of the betrayals of its identity of which the Church is more or less regularly guilty —cannot be attributed to the Church itself, either as community or as institution. The Church's identity —the fact that it is koinonia, community —belongs to it not in itself but in Christ. Hence it appropriates that identity in living, and knowing that it lives, from beyond itself, from outside the sphere of its communal or institutional competence: i.e., on the basis of the grace and the calling which make it the community by which God's covenant with humanity is signified.

Hence it becomes important to understand just what is meant when it is said that the sacraments are "ecclesial realities," or that the Church owns, possesses, or controls what the sacraments enact. What is meant is rather that the sacraments are moments in the life of the Church where, by reason of the covenanted gift of God, what it does and what God is doing correspond and coincide. They are crucially and characteristically ecclesial because in them the Church receives its identity as a gift —an identity which is not simply "church" or "community" but Christ himself, who stands over the Church in giving himself for it.

Thus the sacraments are indeed "proper" to the Church; but they are not derived from it. They stand within its life as events, ever repeated, which it performs and administers, but does not possess and control. What the sacraments enact is something objective for the Church as well as something proper to the Church.

(5)

It is essentially for this reason that the question of the validity of a sacramental action cannot be reduced without remainder to that of whether or not it has the Church's "recognition": i.e., whether it conforms in all respects to the customs and laws which normally regulate the administration either of the sacraments generally or of a particular sacrament. Because the reality which the sacraments signify as gift and not as possession —because they are events objective for the Church as well as proper to it —it is necessary to assert, as a matter of principle, that the Church recognizes a sacramental action because it is valid, not that suck an action is valid because the Church recognizes it.

It is always possible, in short, to raise the question whether the covenant of God's grace is simply coincident with the principles and laws of association through which the Church normally shapes and expresses its koinonia in Christ. Or, to put it another way, one can always ask whether a sacramental action may not be a properly ecclesial act without being an official ecclesiastical act. It is the possibility and necessity of this question, grounded in the nature of Church and sacraments themselves, which is the foundation of the distinction between "validity" and "regularity."

(6)

This distinction —and the troublesome question out of which it arises— became an integral part of western Christian tradition as a result of the position taken by St. Augustine of Hippo on the status of sacraments celebrated in the schismatic Donatist Church of North Africa. The Donatist body, appealing to the authority of St. Cyprian of Carthage, held that only a church whose bishops were "pure" (i.e., in practice, of the sin of apostasy) could be a church in which the Holy Spirit dwelt, and thus a church in which there was a true and valid ministry of the sacraments. Since the Donatists believed that the hierarchy of the imperial Catholic Church in Africa was derived through an apostate bishop, they separated themselves from the orthodox body on the ground that they, and not it, represented the pure, and hence the true, Church.

St. Augustine, whose position was in part a development of that taken more than a century before by Pope Stephen I against St. Cyprian, had two basic purposes in his debate with the Donatists. The first was to counter what he regarded as a false view of the nature of Church and sacraments. The second was to reconcile the Donatists to the Catholic Church. Both of these ends he sought to achieve by what was in effect a single line of argument.

Augustine maintained that the holiness of the Church consisted not in the moral purity of (its members or) its bishops, but in its participation in the Incarnate Word through grace —a participation realized in different degrees in its different members as they moved towards their destiny in God. Accordingly, he taught that the validity of sacraments depended not on the moral character of the minister (which he considered ultimately unsearchable by men), but on the work of God in Christ objectively fulfilled through the minister as he carries out the sacramental sign. It is not, in short, the Church which "makes" a sacrament, but God in Christ.

This repudiation of the Donatist view of Church and sacrament enables Augustine further to assert the validity of the sacraments of the schismatic Donatist body itself. For although the Donatists had committed what to Augustine was the sacrilegious sin of schism, the rupture of charity and community, this (moral!) defect could not alter the objective reality of the sacraments as they performed them. The Donatists collectively were, as he saw it, in the position of individual catholics who came to the sacraments "hypocritically" —without desire and faith. They received the reality which the sacraments convey —they were "branded" with Christ, but with no benefit for their ultimate personal salvation. They ate and drank, indeed, to their condemnation. Donatists' sacraments were, then, valid (objective and real appropriations of the covenant of grace: ecclesial acts); irregular (because performed apart from the Catholic Church); and inefficacious concerned the personally appropriable fruits of the sacraments (because received in a spirit contrary to charity). Such sacraments would become regular and efficacious through reconciliation to the Church.

Augustine's assertion of the existence of sacramental actions which are valid but not regular is the ultimate source of a developed theory of the necessary conditions for mere validity —a theory worked out essentially by the scholastic theologians of the Middle Ages. In effect the theory may be said to answer the question what the circumstances are in which a sacrament may qualify as an ecclesial act, an authentic appropriation of the Covenant of Grace for the Church, without being an official ecclesiastical act. The conditions specified are four in number.

First, the sacramental sign itself must be correctly performed. What is at issue here is the character of the action itself —the words, things, and gestures which are involved in it. Traditionally, this condition has been taken to be satisfied by the presence of correct form (the words used) and correct matter (the visible thing and/or action which the words interpret). These together are taken to constitute the actual sign.

Second, there is the condition of correct intention. This demands that the action, be performed (by minister and recipient) to the work and will of God in Christ. The action, in short, must be meant as a carrying-out, and thus an appropriation of the divine promise to mankind as that is represented in the Church. Intention here is not tested by reference to merely private states of mind, but by the publicly observable criterion of a serious will, as declared in action, "to do what the Church does"; i.e., to perform the act with the meaning which it has in and for the community of faith. However, this intention is not understood to presuppose either a perfect understanding of, or a perfect agreement with, everything which the Church teaches or requires in connection with the performance of the sacramental action. Intending "to do what the Church does" means simply: performing the particular sacramental action as an appropriation of its meaning within the covenant of grace, even though dimensions of that meaning may (and almost certainly do) escape the conscious conception and purpose of the minister.

Third, there is the condition of the proper minister. The minister of a sacrament is one who represents to the community of faith the Christ in whom its identity and his are realized, and in doing so represents it to itself. As such, the minister, is, as a person fulfilling a role, a sign of the New Covenant in its character both as divine gift and as human response. Thus the requirement of the proper minister points to the necessity that the sacramental action be, and be perceived as, an action which occurs in fulfillment of that Covenant —and of that Covenant as it is historically manifested in a visible human community through which, though not from which, the sacraments derive.

Finally, it is necessary to note that a sacramental sign is invalid (meaningless might be a better term here) when the person who seeks to receive it is incapable of receiving it. (One who is not baptized, e.g., cannot be ordained.) Since it has been maintained that female sex is a formal disqualification for the reception of the sacrament of Holy Order, this condition is one which must be considered here.

(8)

Before examining the Philadelphia ordinations themselves, however, it it necessary to say something of a general nature about the significance of ordination.

It is more or less clear to everyone what the visible result of an ordination normally is. The person ordained assumes a certain office and a certain status in the Church. The office is traditionally, and no doubt properly, defined in terms of functions and powers: in relation to the sacramental worship of the Church; in relation to the proclamation and explication of the Word in the Church; and in relation to leadership and government in the Church. The status, which belongs to this office, is definable in terms of membership in a "college," a community of ministers, to which these functions and powers belong in common.

Such an account of ordination as induction into office and "college" might be sufficient save for the fact that ordination (in the Episcopal Church and catholic tradition generally) is held to be unrepeatable. A person may resign or lose an office, and be returned to it again; but whatever it is that happens in ordination cannot be resigned or lost —or returned to. A bishop, presbyter, or deacon, once ordained, may be deprived of the office which is properly his, but not of his order.

The meaning of ordination, therefore, does not lie so much in function or collegial membership, as it does in what may be called "personal role." Ordination assigns and confers a way of being related to the Church upon a person, and not simply as one capable of carrying out certain functions. (In this particular respect, ordination is analogous to baptism, which explicitly actualizes for a person the relation to God which is his in Christ —a relation which cannot be lost even though the way of life and the calling that follow naturally and immediately upon it are not in fact followed or fulfilled.)

But what is this "way of being related to the Church"? It has in recent times been defined primarily in terms of the idea of representation. The ordained person represents (i.e., symbolically focuses) the Church for itself and before God. And so much is no doubt true. But to represent the Church for itself and before God means to represent the Christ in whom the Church has its identity and in whom God accepts it. Ordination thus constitutes a person, for the Church, as a covenant-sign: it assigns and confers the personal role of actively signifying the identity of the Church in Christ. And upon this role, office and status immediately follow, no doubt according to times, circumstances, and the laws of men. A valid ordination, however, is one which assigns and confers this role as something proper to the person ordained.

(9)

Ordination is accomplished (1) by the laying-on of hands with prayer, (2) through the ministry of a bishop, (3) who by what he does declares his intention of having conferred the role of bishop, presbyter, or deacon upon the person ordained. Further, this rite must, if it is to be valid, be performed upon a suitable subject.

The question now becomes whether these conditions were satisfactorily fulfilled in the Philadelphia ordinations, and whether, assuming a real distinction between validity and regularity, there are other conditions for validity which either ought to have been fulfilled but were not, or ought to have been fulfilled and in fact were.

(10)

The first problem which must be taken up is the question whether women are suitable subjects for ordination. It must be noted that this is not a question about the desirability of ordaining women in the Episcopal Church. It is merely the technical question whether female sex constitutes in itself an obstacle to the "working" of the sacrament of Order.

Various arguments are propounded which are intended to suggest a negative answer to this question (though in fact, even if they were demonstrative, there might be doubt as to their strict relevance). It is suggested, for example, that since Jesus Christ was male and not female, women cannot "represent" him; or that since the representatives whom Jesus himself chose to bear his Gospel were all males, he must consciously have intended that the ministers of the Church be for all time exclusively male. Quite apart from the problem of the relevance of such considerations to the point at issue, these arguments are not, as has frequently been pointed out, very effective. The latter assumes a legislative intent on Jesus' part of which we know (and can know) nothing; and furthermore it leaves dangling such uncomfortable questions as whether Gentiles can properly be ordained, since all the Apostles were Jews. The former assumes that "maleness" is that identity of Christ which is sacramentally represented to (and by) the Church as the basis of humanity's reconciliation with God —a doubtful proposition on the face of it. [The proposition is doubtful even in the light of Ephes. 5:22-33, where the author draws on the image of the sacred marriage (cf. Ezek. 16:8ff., and possibly Ps. 45) to figure the relation of Christ (as "husband") to the Church (as "bride"), and interprets Gen. 2:24 "of Christ and of the Church." The ultimate point of the figure is not to suggest that Christ saves because he is, or inasfar as he is, male. Rather it is to suggest that that identity of the Church in Christ (Ephes. 2:15f., 4:15f.) which is its salvation consists solely in the love by which Christ "gave himself up for it," and which it returns and reflects by its obedience.]

More traditional arguments against the ordination of women have relied not so much on considerations of this sort, as on the belief that women cannot fulfill a role which involves an office of leadership and authority. This view was based on the belief that women, like slaves and children, are, either naturally or as a result of that Fall, in a position of subjection and dependency. These arguments, however, are themselves more than difficult to maintain. They appeal either to an Aristotelian biology and philosophy of nature which are difficult to defend; or else to an interpretation of Genesis 3 —its character, setting, and purpose —which theology has long rejected. Moreover, since women do in fact occupy —and have in the past occupied —positions of leadership and authority in ecclesiastical as well as secular spheres, theological and philosophical aetiologies which are calculated to show that they cannot possibly do so seem beside the point.

Of more immediate interest, perhaps, is the fact that recent discussion of the ordination of women in the Episcopal Church has seldom adverted to the problem of their intrinsic susceptibility to ordination. It has rather concentrated on the issue of the cultural, social, and psychological implications and effects of their being ordained —i.e., on the question of the desirability of their being ordained. The assumption seems to have been — certainly within Anglican circles in the past decade or so —that women can be ordained, even though the Church might judge it wiser on the whole not to do so. Indeed, one of the forms or grades of the sacrament of order (the Diaconate) is already open to them (as are the seminary studies which normally prepare persons for ordination); and this fact, like the majority votes in the House of Bishops favoring the ordination of women to the Presbyterate, creates a presumption that there is no serious doubt for the Episcopal Church about the capacity of women to be ordained.

There is, moreover, good reason for this assumption. In Baptism, women, like men, are made members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven, They are, therefore, unless the Church's custom of baptizing women is erroneous, capable of sharing in the identity of Christ, and, in the lay role, of representing him. If this is true, there is no ground whatever for supposing that women are intrinsically incapable of entering into the role of the person who sacramentally represents to the Church its identity in Christ. Indeed, it seems that to make this assertion would be implicitly to deny or to qualify the meaning of women's baptisms.

We conclude that a woman is capable of receiving the sacrament of Order, in all its grades.

(11)

Since the rite used in the Philadelphia ordinations was that of THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER ... OF THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH . . . , we conclude that the matter (the laying-on of hands) and the form (the bishop's ordination formula) were correct, and that therefore the traditional sacramental sign was completed.

The process followed in the Episcopal Church for the selection of persons for ordination is no part of the sacramental sign; but it may be worth noting that the women ordained in Philadelphia were by education and training qualified to undergo or complete this process with at least normal prospects of success.

(12)

In the report of the Theological Committee of the House of Bishops, question was raised as to the propriety of the intention of the ordination rite performed in Philadelphia.

The objection suggested was complex in form. Negatively, it asserted that "The 'proper intention' of a sacrament is not just the 'right words.' " Then more positively it stated that what is necessary is an intention which (a) originates in "the community," and (b) involves a clear will to maintain community. If these conditions are not fulfilled, it is argued, the rite "intends" contradictory things, since ordination is an act of the community which consists in an induction of the persons ordained "into the ministerial community."

So far as this objection involves the proposition that ordination does not "work" except as "the community" is the ultimate (human?) minister of the sacrament, it concerns not the question of intention, but that of the proper minister, and must be considered in that connection. The basic issues here are two in number. First, there is the question of the sense in which it is true to say that ordination is to be understood as "entrance into the ministerial community," and that this constitutes the objective intention of the rite. Second, there is the question of the sense in which ordination (or any other sacrament) "intends" the maintenance of community.

To begin with, however, we must state our agreement with the proposition that "right words" are not in themselves sufficient evidence of correct intention. (In certain cases, "right words" is the test of correct form.) The question of intention is the question whether the rite as performed evinces the participants' (and in particular the ministers') intent seriously to "do what the Church does." In this connection, it seems clear that there is more than sufficient evidence that the bishops, ordinands, and other participants in the Philadelphia rite consciously understood and intended their action to be an action, within the covenant of grace, by which eleven persons had sacramentally conferred upon them the Order of the Presbyterate. This is evident first from the solemn public performance of a rite which could, as seriously done, express no other intention; second, from the explicit public statements of the participants in the service; and third, from the very fact that the performance of the rite occurred in circumstances which made its intention the most obvious, because the most controversial, thing about it.

But, it is said, the intention to ordain priests cannot be embodied in a rite which "fractures community," since ordination consists in induction into the (ministerial) community. It need hardly be said that this understanding of order is not explicitly defined in the rite of the BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER, though it may be an arguable theological interpretation of the phenomenon of Order. Certainly it is true that ordination has as an immediate consequence the ranking of the ordained person in the fellowship of the other members of his or her order in the Church. Even so, it is doubtful whether this consequence of ordination is properly definitive of the meaning of order, which, as we have argued earlier, consists in the conferring of a personal role (Para. 8), not in the office or status which follow upon that role. An ordination intends to confer on the ordinand that special relation to the Church which belongs to Deacon, Presbyter, or Bishop; it does not intend membership in a group, however defined, from "college" to "club."

Even so, however, is it not true that the intention of the minister in performing a sacramental act (and especially, perhaps, an ordination) must embrace, as an essential aspect of the act itself, its function as creative of community? And if this is so, must we not say that a sacramental action which is performed in such wise as to deny or contravene community is thereby revealed to be inadequate in intention? After all, even though ordination does not consist in induction into a group, it does, more profoundly, aim at the "edifying of the Church."

This amounts, it should be noted, to a proposal to redefine the traditional understanding of "intention" by expanding the meaning of the word to embrace not only the inherent meaning of the act but also its particular (external) effects. Whether or not such a redefinition is legitimate, however, the proposal is not an easy one to accept just as stated. For under what circumstances does a sacramental action so contravene "community" by its very performance that its objective intention must be judged inadequate? One might answer: when it violates the laws (canons and rubrics) which are a particular Church's "terms of association." Such an answer, however, reduces the problem of validity to that of regularity and tacitly identifies Christian koinonia with a particular set of institutional arrangements. On the other hand, no other answer seems possible which does not systematically invalidate the sacramental actions of (among others) the Episcopal Church, since every celebration of a Eucharist in that body creates and maintains its division from other Christian bodies and thus contravenes the very nature of the Church. Which community is "the community?"

It is true that ordination (and indeed every sacramental action) of the Church intends community —not because of the immediate and conscious purpose of the minister, nor yet because the act chances to offend no one and to violate no laws, but because the action itself, when carried out for what it means under the covenant of grace, effectively signifies the membership of men and women in the one Christ. The community thus intended and effected, however, occurs in a world and takes form in a Church which do not always fully or gladly accept or express it. In other words, the empirical and institutional community of the Church does not, as it is and as such, perfectly coincide with the eschatological community which sacrament intends and realizes. If it did, this (the Episcopal Church!) would be the fulfilled Kingdom of God; and that does not appear to be the case.

The intention of a sacramental act is an intention in which the Church wills its ultimate and true identity in Christ; and in doing so, it wills and intends what God is making of it, not simply what it has made of what God is making of it. The older and narrower doctrine of intention grasps this truth. It attempts to define the community of the Church by reference to the action of God in Christ, and not vice versa. It may be that the community which the Church is in Christ embraces women as co-equal children of God in the Incarnate Word. If so, the Philadelphia ordinations, in intending to confer priesthood on eleven women, intended that koinonia.

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The final matter at issue is the question whether the Philadelphia ordinations were or were not performed by competent ministers of the sacrament of Order. The ministers in question were bishops; but they were bishops acting without jurisdiction, and, moreover, whether by omission or commission, in contravention of clear customs and laws of the Church of whose nature they were aware. Can such bishops have acted competently as bishops in the performance of an ordination?

The objection that the three bishops did not, and in the circumstances could not, act competently as bishops, is urged on several grounds, all of which have to do with the nature of the Church as "community" and with the role of the ministry in relation to that community. First it is urged that to be a bishop is to be a "sign of unity," and that no-one can act competently as a bishop when his action "signifies" division. Second, and in accordance with this principle, it is urged that a bishop acts properly as a bishop only when he acts representatively —at once of the community at large, and of the College of Bishops. Hence the Philadelphia ordinations were not performed by proper ministers because the action did not "originate" in the community.

The latter intention of course involves to some degree a judgment of fact: that the impulse to ordain women to the presbyterate did not "originate" in the community. This judgment is absolutely true if the canon law and its procedures are accepted as definitive of the community's mind. If, however, one looks not simply at the law, but at the community itself, it appears that both in the House of Bishops (which is not coextensive with, but may] perhaps be taken as "representative" of, the College of Bishops) and in the Church at large there exists, and existed, a large and significant body of sentiment which desires the ordination of women; and further, that there were and are identifiable local communities (congregations) which desire the ordination of these women. The action of the bishops in Philadelphia, therefore, was, in the sense required, representative of a desire and intention which stemmed from the community. Their action was not isolated nor merely idiosyncratic, even though the community will which it represented ran contrary to another will which is equally real in the community.

When, then, does a bishop act "representatively?" The objection, as we understand it, suggests that "acting representatively" is equivalent to acting as a delegate in simultaneous accord with (1) a local eucharistic community (presumably a diocese), and (2) the College of Bishops. In this thesis there seem to be two kinds of difficulty, one practical, the other theoretical.

(A) What happens to the "representative" character of the episcopate when such accord does not exist or is impossible to maintain on a given issue? (Could Athanasius, when acting contra mundum, ordain no proper presbyters? Or was it enough that, while disagreeing with the bishops of Constantinople, Antioch, and Caesarea, he should agree with the bishop of Rome?) In our experience, the Church is divided, in a variety of ways and on a variety of levels. This fact is illustrated by the divided mind of the Episcopal Church in the matter of the ordination of women —manifest in the House of Bishops as well as in the community at large. Given in the state of affairs which prevailed in this Church in July, 1974, on the subject of women's ordination, what would an honest bishop have had to do in order to act "representatively," or to fulfill the "mind" or "intention" either of his colleagues or of the community? It is in fact not easy —perhaps not possible —to say; for where significant division exists on an issue, "representative" action with regard to it is difficult to compass, though it is no doubt arguable that inaction is more "representative" than any form of action when there is no common mind. There is thus, given the Church as it is, some practical difficulty in the nation that bishops only act competently as bishops when they act "representatively."

This general difficulty is enhanced by the fact that, given contemporary social realities, significant and real community within the Church does not always coincide with, or get expressed in, jurisdictionally defined community. There may be true communities which are not jurisdictions; and jurisdictions which are not functioning communities. Under such circumstances, the question when in actual fact a cleric is acting "representatively" is not always susceptible of a clear legal answer. The Church embraces not only different communities, but different sorts of communities, only some of which are based primarily on the geographical proximity which jurisdiction traditionally presupposes.

(B) But there is also, and perhaps more importantly, a theoretical difficulty. For "representation," when it is used of the relation of ministry to Church, does not primarily signify "delegation." It means, as we have suggested above, the symbolic focusing in and for the Church of its identity in Christ. The ministry belongs to the Church and derives through it for the sake of this kind of representation, not some other; and it is dangerous to apply to the ministry ideas of representation which stem largely from political practice. The ministry is not apart from the Church or independent of it; but, at the same time, it is one of "the ways in which the Church sacramentalizes its dependence upon something which is above it —the grace and the Word of God. The bishop as a "sign of unity," then, is a sign of the unity of the Church in Christ, in the Gospel, and in the electing grace of God —a sign that these realities constitute the Church as one through the succession of generations, in all parts of the world, and in the midst of its divisions and contentions.

The question, then, about the bishops who performed the ordinations in Philadelphia is not whether their action was controversial (and thus "unrepresentative"), but whether they were bishops in and for the Episcopal Church and whether their action was an ecclesial one —one in which their role as bishops was exercised in and for the body in which they are constituted as bishops. That it was just that is most clearly attested by the fact that they, and the persons whom they ordained, are presently under discipline in the Church for the irregularity of their act. They acted neither apart from the Church nor independently of it, but extra-legally within it. Their action, therefore, was precisely not that of episcopi vagantes; it was an ecclesial exercise of episcopal order, carried out in response to, and with reference to, a communally-based conviction and desire. In these circumstances, the question whether the three bishops acted competently as bishops requires an affirmative answer.

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For the reasons given above, it is our conviction that the proper verdict on the ordinations performed in Philadelphia last July is that (in traditional terminology) they were valid but irregular. The implications of this statement, however, must be spelled out with some care.

In essence what the statement means is that it is possible for the Episcopal Church to acknowledge the women ordained in Philadelphia as presbyters, and in doing so admit them to the office and status which properly belong to their order. In other words, what took place in Philadelphia was an unratified ordination, which may, without any form of re-ordination, be "authorized" or "recognized."

On the other hand —and equally clearly —the verdict of validity does not require the Church so to recognize the Philadelphia ordination. In the case of the Sacrament of Order, its full and normal effect is enabled only by ratification, since the sacramental role conferred naturally issues in the exercise of office in and for the Church. Consequently, while recognition does not constitute validity but presupposes it, authorization alone can clarify the practical ambiguity of the status of those irregularly ordained. Until such recognition is given, the persons ordained remain priests for the Episcopal Church; but they are not priests of the Episcopal Church.

Thus a question remains; and it is a question which cannot be settled by dwelling on the matter of validity. Even though the ordinations were valid, the question of their ratification is open; and that question must be settled on the basis of a decision about the rightness of having women ordained to the Presbyterate and, ultimately, the Episcopate. To ratify the ordinations involves a judgment that they possessed not merely validity, but also the quality of bearing sincere witness, on an issue of moment, to the nature of Christian community.

The Rev. Richard A. Morris, Jr., D.Phil., Professor of Dogmatic Theology, General Theological Seminary (New York City)

The Rev. Eugene R. Fairweather, Th.D., Keble Professor of Divinity, Trinity College, University of Toronto (Canada)

The Rev. J. E. Griffiss, Ph.D., Professor of Apologetics and Dogmatic Theology, Nashotah House (Wisconsin)

The Rev. Albert T. Mollegen, D.D., retired Professor of New Testament and Christian Ethics, Episcopal Theological Seminary in Virginia

January 15, 1975

APPENDIX F

The Ecumenical Impact of the Proposed Ordination of Women: A Statement by the Joint Commission on Ecumenical Relations of the Episcopal Church— adopted 1/30/75

The Joint Commission on Ecumenical Relations has discussed the possible ecumenical impact of the proposed ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopate in the Episcopal Church.

We must report a variety of conflicting speculations about what the results would be for our ecumenical relations if the Episcopal Church were to take this step and we do not feel able to forecast exactly what the result would be.

In Orthodox relations, ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopate would clearly be an additional obstacle to unity efforts but would not in all probability terminate contacts and conversations.

In Anglican-Roman Catholic relations, it is evident that Roman Catholic opinion can be found on both sides of the question, although Roman Catholic practice is not likely to change quickly.

In relations with non-episcopal churches, our failure to admit women to these orders is at present an obstacle to unity.

In the role of the Church as a sign of God's will for human unity to those outside its fellowship, it appears that, in the U.S.A., the subject is widely seen in the context of the pursuit of equality for men and women in daily life.

In each of these areas, the task of the Episcopal Church must be to consider the question in an earnest search for God's will, and to seek to explain its decision in terms understandable to the various parties concerned.

The issues underlying the proposal to ordain women are, we believe, matters which should be of concern to all parts of the universal Church. It seems to us obvious, however, that there is no reasonable hope in the foreseeable future for the convening of an Ecumenical Council in which the churches might face this question collectively.

The Joint Commission on Ecumenical Relations believes that the Episcopal Church must make its decision, as the Lambeth Conference of 1968 anticipated, acting as a province of the Anglican Communion and on the basis of a widely shared conviction about the meaning and significance of Scripture, Tradition, and theological reflection. As the Episcopal Church attempts to discern God's will on this matter, our Commission would express the earnest hope that we may do so without the sacrifice of our Church's internal integrity and unity, which are essential to our ecumenical task.

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