The women who have been ordained in the “West” have been, naturally, from within the open evangelical or modernist catholic strains of Anglican life. This is unfortunate since it has often, as in the Dean’s case, seemed to connect support for women’s presbyteral ordination with ongoing revision of historic doctrine or practice.

I’m unsure whether this need necessarily be the case but that it has often, in fact, been the case seems to me undeniable.

Clearly I don’t understand some important element here:  I thought ++Sentamu, Archbishop of York (which is where this woman is now Dean) was a ‘reasserter’ (orthodox) on many issues facing the CoE, including homosexual blessing and/or marriage.  So ... either that is not true, or he has little influence in who is Dean at York, or he feels it is more important to promote clergy who have some characteristic or trait than those who are ‘orthodox’, or her views weren’t known to him at the time of her appointment.  Can someone fill me in?  Clearly I misunderstand something here.

Cathedral deans aren’t appointed by Bishops in the CofE. They are Crown appointments (which doesn’t mean the Queen appoints them, except in a formal sense). Of course the bishop and diocese would presumably have an input to the process (along with myriad other voices) but the folks to look towards are the Crown Appointments people.

Thank you, #3.  That does explain it, at least a bit.

“...it becomes clear that, in a way, the 57-year-old’s whole church career has been a struggle against a system that did not seem to have a place in it for women.”

Which is an insult to the generations of evangelical and anglo-catholic women who have been quite comfortable in that “system”.

The real issue for Ms Faull is that she wasn’t permitted to be ordained as a presbyter or bishop.  Since the Christian church as a whole has not done this for 2,000 years, it is difficult to see any basis for her complaint, except that she personally failed to get the power she craved. 

“But if it fails, she says, it will set back the cause of women within the church by years”

No it won’t and it didn’t.  It only set back the cause of that narrow group of women like Ms Faull. 

And of course, it is a harbinger of opposition to the measure she strongly supports: homosexual “marriage”.