ALTHOUGH it is only 30 years since the ordination of the first women to the priesthood, many in that first generation of women had been working in various forms of diaconal ministry for many years before that. Thus they are reaching, or have reached, the ends of their lives.
It is good, therefore, to have this first-hand account from one of the most prominent of these women, Judith Rose, now approaching her 90th year (Notebook, 7 November). It is a short and marvellously matter-of-fact account of her life, in which the story of her ministry is interwoven with anecdotes about the longevity of a drop-leaf table and a near-arrest in Yugoslavia for wearing a two-piece bathing suit.
These inconsequential details rub shoulders with examples of the discrimination and prejudice that Rose faced during the years from when she started as a parish worker, in 1966, to after she was the first woman to be appointed archdeacon, in 1995. And this is absolutely the right context: the discrimination was hurtful (and still memorable decades later); but, then and now, it is not allowed to dominate Rose’s story.
She records that she was a member of the campaigning group the Movement for the Ordination of Women, but her chief method of campaigning was to perform each of her tasks in ministry with notable proficiency and grace. As she points out, the pattern of her career was to be appointed to tasks of increasing seniority, and then wait for the C of E to catch up and give the title that her male peers enjoyed. This applied even to her last post: she had to start as Acting Archdeacon of Tonbridge, because the Synod had been slow to recognise diaconal ministry as a qualification for higher office, and she had not clocked up enough years as a priest.
Despite her calm and unpolemical approach, it is still shocking to read of the hindrances placed in front of such an obviously competent servant of Christ. But one closes this book with an overwhelming admiration for the courage and faithfulness of its author.
Paul Handley was editor of the Church Times 1995-2024.
First in Line: One woman’s groundbreaking path to ordination in the Church of England
Judith Rose
Kevin Mayhew £12.99
(978-1-83858-221-0)
Church Times Bookshop £11.69