Church of England aims to revive women bishops plan in July

The Church of England said on Wednesday it wanted a swift relaunch of moves to admit women bishops, with revised plans put before its governing body at the earliest opportunity in July.

The 19-strong Archbishops' Council said it wanted to resolve the situation "as a matter of urgency" after the General Synod, the governing body of England's state church, failed to approve legislation in a November 20 vote, triggering turmoil.

"Many council members commented on the deep degree of sadness and shock that they had felt as a result of the vote," said the statement issued at the end of a two-day meeting of the council, the Synod's standing committee.

They also felt the need "to affirm all women serving the church -- both lay and ordained -- in their ministries.

"The council decided that a process to admit women to the episcopate needed to be restarted at the next meeting of the General Synod in July 2013.

"There was agreement that the Church of England had to resolve this matter through its own processes as a matter of urgency.

"The council therefore recommended that the House of Bishops, during its meeting in a fortnight's time, put in place a clear process for discussions in the New Year with a view to bringing legislative proposals before the Synod in July."

The House of Bishops -- one of the three houses of the Synod, along with the clergy and the ordinary churchgoing laity -- will aim to put adjusted proposals before the next meeting of the Synod in July.

If so, the 470-strong body will hold a simple majority vote that if passed would see the proposals taken out to the 44 dioceses, of which 42 were in favour of women bishops last time.

Given enough support, the proposals would then come back to the Synod for a final vote on approving legislation -- as happened last week, when it narrowly rejected the appointment of women bishops, sparking turmoil and setting back efforts to modernise the mother church of 85 million Anglicans worldwide.

In its biggest decision since backing the introduction of women priests 20 years ago, just enough lay members of the Church of England voted against the measure to bring it down, following years of wrangling between traditionalists and liberals.

Votes on legislation need a two-thirds majority in all three houses but narrowly missed the threshold in the House of Laity by just six votes.

The vote left the Church of England facing accusations that it was out of touch with society.

British Prime Minister David Cameron -- himself a churchgoing Anglican -- told parliament after the vote he was "very sad" about the result and urged the Church of England to "get with the programme."

The C of E, which separated from the Roman Catholic Church in 1534, claims that more than 40 percent of people in England regard themselves as members.

The wider Anglican communion's first woman bishop was appointed in the United States in 1989 and there are now 37 worldwide.