Female Priests in the Episcopal Church

by Louie Crew
Rutgers University
©1998 by Louie Crew. Use freely but only if you acknowledge Louie Crew as the author, cite this website, and send hard copy to Dr. Louie Crew, P. O. Box 30, Newark, NJ 07101.

What appears to be a decline in both orders after 1994 more likely reflects a lag in the time that ordinations actually get reported and recorded in The Clerical Directory. The Directory used for making these tallies appeared in electronic form in January of 1998, and it is highly unlikely that it had recorded the many ordinations that often take place in December. Nor does the graph include priests ordained during that period who have since died, because their records are no longer in the Clerical Directory. Click here to see the graph just of women.

In 1973, there were no women priests.  The 1998 Episcopal Clerical Directory contains ordination dates for all but one of 1,955 women priests.  Women now constitute 13.8% of those listed in the 1998 Episcopal Clerical Directory.

See also the the deployment of black women priests by diocese and the deployment of all black priests.

• The entries of 2 women priests did not name their diocese.
• The Dioceses of Quincy and San Joaquin do not recognize the priesthood of women. The Diocese of Eau Claire has held such a view in the past, but a letter which I received on May 22 reviews its current policy:

  While I cannot speak for the other Dioceses involved, as President of the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Eau Claire, I can speak to the current policy in this diocese.

  The Executive Council and the Commission on Ministry of the Diocese have repealed all previous statements on the ordination of women and recognized the authority of the canons of the National Church in this mater. No other policies or canons in the Diocese of Eau Claire exist which would prohibit a women from pursuing ordination to the priesthood in this diocese any more then they would a man. As we are about to elect a new bishop this October, our ordination process for the priesthood has been closed to new aspirants for over a year and will remain closed until our next bishop takes action to open it.

  Thank you for your efforts to report information to the church accurately and fairly. If you have any questions, please contact me.

  Faithfully,

  The Very Rev. Ward H. Simpson, President
  Standing Committee
  Diocese of Eau Claire

Women are distributed differently in the three orders of ordained ministry:

Only 378 women priests are employed as rectors (9.7% of 3,902 rectors). Women priests are 17.7% of 1,062 vicars.

Women rectors have only one-fourth the share of male rectors in overseeing parishes of 1,000+ members. Only 1.4% of all female rectors now occupy such positions, compared with 5.2% of all male rectors and 4.4% of all black priests. Only five women are rectors of parishes with 1,000 or more members:

1. The Rev. Carol Linda Anderson, R All SS 89-. Beverly Hills, CA Parish Size:1400-1499
2. The Rev. Heather Elizabeth Cook, R S Andr 94-. York, PA Parish Size:1200-1299
3. The Rev. Margaret B Gunness, R Chr 91-. Ridgewood, NJ Parish Size:1500-1599
4. The Rev. Brenda Gail Husson, R S Jas 96-. New York, NY Parish Size:1800-1899
5. The Rev. Rosemary Pickering Thomas, Abilene, TX Parish Size:1100-1199

Female Bishops

1. Rt. Rev. Jane Dixon, Bishop Suffragan of Washington
2. Rt. Rev. Barbara Harris, Bishop Suffragan of Massachusetts
3. Rt. Rev. Carolyn Irish, Bishop of Utah
4. Rt. Rev. Chilton Knudsen, Bishop of Maine
5. Rt. Rev. Mary Adelia McLeod, Bishop of Vermont
6. Rt. Rev. Catherine S. Roskam, Bishop Suffragan of New York
7. Rt. Rev. Catherine (Cate) Waynick, Bishop of Indianapolis
8. Rt. Rev. Geralyn Wolf, Bishop of Rhode Island

   Three more women are bishops in the Anglican Commmunion outside the USA

9. Rt. Rev. Penelope Jamieson, Bishop of Dunedin, New Zealand
10. Rt. Rev. Victoria Matthews, Bishop of Edmonton, Canada
11. Rt. Rev. Ann Tottenham, Bishop Suffragan of Toronto (Credit Valley), Canada

Women deployed as rectors have the smallest average congregation of any subgroup that I have monitored:

Parish Size

bps' last parish lay deputies all deputies all rectors clergy deputies black rectors all congregations unmarried rectors female rectors

I have not computed averages of congregations overseen by vicars, priest-in-charge....., but those congregations are included in "All Congregations." To compute "All congregations" I divided the total number of confirmed communicants (1,592,653) by the total number of parishes (7,395) -- a reported in the 1998 Episcopal Church Annual. and I will continue to add new information to this report.

It seems like the same ole patriarchy to me.

Age

Women priests are on average ten years younger than male priests, (51.74 vs. 60.73). That is in large measure the result of the larger pool of retired clergy males. Women have not been ordained long enough to comprise a proportionate share of the elderly clergy.

Although the average woman priest is younger than the average male, women priests were older upon ordination, 41.82 vs. 32.63 for the males. Also, women priests took an average of 1.22 years to move from the diaconate to priesthood, compared with only .89 of a year for male priests.

The data suggest that women have to jump higher to get less far.

Bishops Who Ordained

Over half (53.6%) of the women ordained as priests have been ordained by under one-fifth (19.6%) of the bishops who have ordained twelve or more women.

*Denotes a bishop consecrated after 1993. This table was prepared in May 1998.

Note: The Clerical Directory often does not distinguish between bishops who have the same last surname, so tallies for such bishops will often be inaccurate.

Clergy Missing in Action

I understand that there are many clergy who never show up in The Clerical Directory at all because they work outside the Church Pension Fund. My friend Linda Curtiss lcurtiss@cpg.org at the CPF refers to these as "clergy in Limbo," and is interested in documenting those who want to be documented. Given the ways in which women clergy who are listed are marginally deployed, I suspect far more women than men are among the ECUSA clergy missing in action.

I would appreciate notice if you wish to be added to my lists as well, lcrew@newark.rutgers.edu

Joy through you to absolutely everyone!

Visit
• Current bishop elections/retirements. Started on 7/2/98.
• Quean Lutibelle's 1998 Report on ECUSA Clergy http://newark.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/priests98.html
• Louie Crew's Anglican Pages, http://newark.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/rel.html.

• Write to lcrew@newark.rutgers.edu

  

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