Church in Wales Governing Body rejects women bishops

The Church in Wales have rejected a controversial Bill which would have allowed women to be ordained as bishops.

Archbishop of Wales Dr Barry Morgan had urged the governing body to back the Bill warning: "The issue will not go away if you vote against it. It will return again and again.''

The 140-strong Governing Body narrowly rejected the Bill which would have seen the creation of female bishops in the principality for the first time. *

The same governing body passed a bill in September 1996 to allow women to be ordained as priests in the Church in Wales.

The first woman was ordained in January 1997 and there are now a total of 160 female priests out of a total of 696 Church in Wales clerics.

I remember attending church with my mother and grandmother at this time. She is a lifelong church goer and found it so odd to be attending a service presided over by a woman priest. In society we can get so used to seeing the same faces in certain professions that any change is taken as a shock to the system - but not for long. Seeing my cousin in a policewoman's uniform was just as much a surprise for my grandmother in recent years. Times have changed and this is now seen as commonplace.

* The decision today is in contrast to other parts of the world where the Anglican Church has passed legislation allowing women to be ordained as bishops. These include Scotland, Ireland, New Zealand, Canada and the United States - but not England.