Why not?  Here in the States, ECUSA has said that anyone can be a bishop (well, except for conservatives) and now, in politics, the leading candidate maintains “Every Man A King!”

At the rate they’re ordaining new clergy, there’ll be a ratio of 1:1; one vicar for each lay person!

“Church of England reports declining attendance, but increased ordinations”

Uh-oh! One thinks of how ECUSA sprouted clergy even as it shed members.

Church heirarchies tend to measure their “success” by the numbers of pastors / ecclesiastics they ordain during a year.  If actual membership is declining, it is minimized, or it is expressed as “localized increases” where that is possible - - i.e., “easter and Christmas” attendance increases.  This is true throughout Protestantism as well, where membership declines in most of the “mainline” denominations is running about 2% a year.  At that rate, there is about 36 years until the last one out of the building can turn off the lights.

Pledges appear to have risen about 1.5%. So that we can understand the significance of this increase, does anybody know last year’s rate of increase or decrease in the U.K’s version of the CPI?

I believe that the relative value of a communicant, on the other hand, has remained constant for several years.

ECUSA’s hyper-clergification over the past four decades has coincided with a decline in lay leadership. Or is it merely a coincidence?

Puts a whole new meaning on “the priesthood of all believers”

ECUSA’s “hyper-clergification” is largely due to the “ordination” of women, as we all know.

It’s clear from the stats that the largest demographic of those being ordained are women in their 40s and 50s (quite a few after divorce), who will be unpaid part-timers managing the decline of dying congregations. As well, most of these new clergy will have done evening courses over three years run by liberal catholics, with very little biblical content (zero biblical languages), not much grasp of historical theology, and very little on preaching and evangelism (wossat?). As they swell clergy ranks, overall the clergy will become benignly more liberal (and less educated in the Bible) as the church shrinks.
The English publication ‘New Directions’ (available online) has documented how these part-time liberal courses have undermined orthodoxy in the Church of England.

I think the joke was a few years ago that the Anglican priesthood was now “A hobby for grannies”.  How true.  Here, too.