Women shouldn’t be airbrushed out of the Gospel – the Assistant Bishop of Llandaff said this week in a rebuke to those who oppose the ordination of women.
Preaching at the induction of Revd Pauline Williams as the first female vicar of Baglan Parish, the Rt Revd David Wilbourne said the Gospels set the precedent for women as well as men to be priests. He also warned that beliefs which undermine women can encourage violence against women.
Bishop David said, “I realise that in others’ very limited mind’s eye they always think of the vicar, the church-ship’s captain, as a man, with Jesus setting the precedent for male apostles. We can’t air-brush the men out of the Gospels. But neither can we air-brush out the women.
“A woman anointed Jesus with costly perfume. Was she anointing him for burial or was she anointing him as king? Whatever, anointing is a very priestly role, anointing a monarch a high priestly, archiepiscopal role. There’s a precedent there we cannot ignore. Nor can we ignore the precedent that Mary Magdalene on the first day of the week whilst it was yet dark was the proto-evangelist of the resurrection, ‘Go to my brothers and tell them… I have seen the Lord.’ Being a minister of the resurrection is a priestly role, truly preaching good news to those impoverished by grief, recovery of sight for those blinded by tears of mourning. ‘Do not hold on to me,’ Jesus says to Mary as she clings to his resurrected body, understandably desperate not to lose him again. There is a precedent there, in that it is a priest who holds on to the body of Christ, but then has to let it go to feed his, her congregation, to feed the world.
“Gospel precedents for men as priests, Gospel precedents for women as priests. We may not like those precedents, but as I say, the precedents set by Christ are to judge us, not we them.”
Defending the church from an accusation that ordaining women was a sign that it had abandoned Christ, Bishop David said, “Ordination is a much needed countersign to a world where women are brutalised in war zones, where gays fear for their very lives in Uganda. Otherwise a homophobic theology encourages homophobic violence; misogynistic theology encourages misogynistic violence just as the anti-Semitic theology of ‘His blood be upon us and our children,’ encouraged anti Semitism, even though that was the last thing Matthew the Gospel writer intended.”
Revd Pauline Williams was ordained as a priest in 2003 and has been the Children’s Officer for the Diocese of Llandaff since 2006. She was previously priest-in-charge of the parish of Abercynon. Before she was ordained, she was a teacher, specialising in Religious Education. She is married to Noel and has four children and four grandchildren. Her hobbies include skiing and reading.
