'The human problem, according to the Christian gospel,
is sin and fallenness. The human problem,
according to the feminist gospel, is patriarchy.'
The itchy, scratchy and touchy victims are priestesses in the Diocese of Sheffield. The vampire and villain is the wicked ogre Philip North, Bishop of Burnley, who has been nominated to the See of Sheffield. Bishop Philip is a traditionalist, you see, who does not believe in “wimmin’s” ordination. When the C of E permitted women to be bishopettes, it assured men like Philip that they would be safe in a “mixed economy” of feminists and traditionalists and that in the new world of Anglicanism there would be a heaven of “mutual flourishing”—note the jellied-eel jargon of modern Anglicanism!In the last two weeks, an Inferno from hell has erupted in this heaven, and a sign from Dante’s Divine Comedy is being erected for this season of Lent: “All hope abandon, ye who enter here.” Egged on by Martyn Percy, Dean of Christchurch, Oxford, the priestesses have gathered around the cauldron and are muttering spells warning Bishop Philip to undergo a theological lobotomy before he ascends the bishop’s throne in Sheffield.



