In a miasma of negative publicity, the General Synod of the Church of England has just voted against its current Measure to allow women priests to be consecrated as bishops.
But the loss was a narrow and strange one. A two thirds majority is needed in all three "Houses" - Bishops, Clergy and Laity - and the Measure lost by merely six votes in the House of Laity, having passed easily in the other two Houses, and having received overall a handsome numerical majority. Recent elections to Synod allowed conservatives (both Catholic and Evangelical) to push forward more candidates into the House of Laity with precisely this vote in mind; and it has long been noted that the House of Laity contains more than its expected share of conservative, elderly or bureaucratically-inclined church people.
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