Making the pain of our exclusion present

This morning two female clergy from the Diocese of London and I attended the ‘Fulham’ Chrism mass at St Andrew’s Holborn. This is an annual service that takes place in Holy Week and has nothing to do with the place Fulham.  It is an opportunity for clergy who do not accept the ordination of women as priests in the Church of England to come together, to share communion, to bless holy oils and to renew their ordination vows.

On the way there, we wondered how welcome our presence might be and we were pleased that we were greeted with smiles, despite wearing clerical dress that indicated our priesthood. 

Nonetheless, it is hard to feel truly welcome when we were not able to robe for the service, nor to process into the church with our male colleagues, nor to sit with them – as priests together.  We sat instead in the congregation at the back of the nave.

It was a beautiful service and the Bishop of Fulham welcomed everyone at the start, including the Rt Revd Sarah Mullally, Bishop of London, who sat graciously on the side and was given no role to perform at all.  A homily was given that was sadly not without a political agenda – making a clumsy joke about LLF and having a dig at the Rt Revd Rosemarie Mallett, Bishop of Croydon, for having the audacity to say that she is not happy about the ongoing discrimination against women in our Church.

It was then time for priests to renew their ordination vows.  The congregation was seated, the male priests stood and my two female colleagues and I stood and we affirmed our vows, even though only ‘Beloved sons’ had been invited to do so.  We also extended our hands with theirs during the blessing of oils and concelebration, as one would normally do in such a service, though painfully aware that our actions may have been viewed there as either hostile or ridiculous.

At the end of the service there was a group photo of all clergy, except us.  We were warmly invited to stay for drinks, which we did, and we engaged in a number of pleasant conversations.  One lay woman said she had wanted to come to the WATCH conference and said she was interested in our campaign.  I asked her if she knew what the word ‘Fulham’ meant in the context of the Fulham Chrism Mass she had just attended.  She said that she thought it was because the service was taken by the Bishop of Fulham and he was from Fulham. I explained that Fulham, in Church-speak, simply means clergy and churches in London who do not accept that women can be ordained as priests. It is sadly not surprising that many lay people, like this woman, do not know things like this - because churches are not at all transparent about their position on the ministry of women.

I had another interesting conversation with a clergyman who almost berated me about the need for me and other female clergy to thrive, and allow him and his colleagues to thrive. I have to say that I am getting thoroughly sick of being commanded to thrive when I truly believe that it is impossible for women to thrive in a context of discrimination.

My two colleagues and I came away from the service pleased that we had attended but, at the same time, deeply saddened that women and men are not treated equally in the Church of England and that we are out of communion with our male ‘Fulham’ colleagues who will not receive the sacraments from female clergy or from clergy ordained by female bishops.

We hope and pray that one day our Church will be reunited as one body, accepting that God calls women and men to be priests and we are all equal in God’s sight.