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FORT WORTH — Breaking a longtime gender barrier, Fort Worth Episcopalians loyal to the Episcopal Church will ordain their first female priest next month.
Susan Slaughter, a deacon at St. Luke’s in the Meadow Episcopal Church, will be ordained by the Right Rev. Edwin F. "Ted" Gulick Jr., bishop of the Diocese of Kentucky who is also provisional bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth. Slaughter will serve as rector of St. Luke’s, another first for the area. The ordination is the latest development in the dispute between the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth and a group that broke away from the national church in November, saying it was abandoning biblical principles, particularly with the ordination of Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, who is openly gay. The breakaway group, led by Bishop Jack Iker, is now part of the Anglican Church in North America.Although he opposes the ordination of women, Iker said, "I wish Susan and her supporters nothing but the best."Iker’s group is embroiled in a lawsuit over property rights with the Episcopal Church and the 24-county diocese.Iker maintains that he is still the bishop of the Fort Worth Diocese, but Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the national Episcopal Church, named Gulick provisional bishop.There are more than 2,000 female Episcopal priests.Most mainline Protestant groups — Methodists, Presbyterians, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Evangelical Lutheran Church in America — ordain women. Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox churches still have an all-male priesthood.The Unitarian Universalists, Quakers, Christian Scientists, Assemblies of God and some other Pentecostal groups have long had female pastors. Conservative groups like the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and the Southern Baptist Convention prohibit the ordination of women. However, moderate Baptist churches allow it.Although the Episcopal Church approved ordination of women in 1976, a "conscience clause" recognized that theological differences existed over the issue. In 1997, the church declared it mandatory that women be given equal access to ordination but guaranteed no one the right to be ordained.
If you go Susan Slaughter will be ordained the first female Episcopal priest in Fort Worth at 5 p.m. Nov. 15 at St. Luke’s in the Meadow Episcopal Church, 4301 Meadowbrook Drive, Fort Worth.
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