So what we have created in the past twenty years is a theological anomaly which has insidiously been made to seem normal: a whole cadre of priests - a third of our priesthood now - who are supposedly intrinsically disabled from exercising the charisms of spiritual unity and authority historically associated with the episcopate. It is here that the main theological scandal still lies: the implicit creation and normalization of second-class priesthood. The terrible danger is that this may now be extended into second-class episcopacy….Twenty years ago our Church voted to ordain women. We have arrived at the point when all the indications are that the current theological anomaly of priests who cannot by definition be bishops has become an unacceptable skandalon to the Church’s life. This is not because of a capitulation to secular feminism; it is, as I’ve tried to demonstrate, because of a commitment to the historic nature of Christian ordained ministry and in particular to the distinctive theological principles of Anglicanism.
While I am fully committed to the attempt to find courteously-ordered arrangements for those who currently disagree, I am completely opposed to the introduction of new incoherences into the theological picture. It is truth that is at stake. And while truth can be two-eyed, it cannot be two-faced.