Last hold out in the West Indies votes to approve women priests

Delegates to the 145th meeting of the Diocese of Guyana Synod have voted to permit the ordination of women to the priesthood. Meeting on 21 June 2016 at St George’s Cathedral in Georgetown,  the synod voted without dissent to amend the diocesan canons to allow women priests. Guyana is believed to be the last diocese in the Church of the Province of the West Indies to have amended its canons to permit women priests. The Rt. Rev. Charles Davidson endorsed the innovation, noting that before his election as eighth Bishop of Guyana he had served for over 20 years in the Episcopal Church of the USA and had come to see the wisdom of allowing the change. He told a local radio station: “I have worked with female priests for the last twenty years so I have no issues with working with anybody who will do God’s work.” He hoped those opposed to the decision would agree to disagree. “God calls all of us and empowers all of us and at some point in the life of the church our eyes are opened and we recognise that there is something we weren’t doing that we should be doing and because people are accustomed to tradition, it tends to cause uneasiness but trust God and decisions that we make prayerfully and studied, God is always with us,” he told the Demera Wave.