THE Church of England may have to reconsider the ordination of women priests one day, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, said yesterday.

In an interview to be published tomorrow, Dr Williams admitted that the level of division over women’s ordination had tested his conviction that it was the right thing to do.

There had even been “moments” when he felt that the ordination of women priests had been wrong.

The influx of women priests into the Church of England since they were ordained in 1994 had not “renewed” the Church in any “spectacular ways”, he said. But he admitted that for the moment there was no going back and it was just a question of “containing” the resulting divisions.

Lambeth Palace said last night that Dr Williams’s remarks to The Catholic Herald had been “wilfully misinterpreted” and that he fully backed women’s ordination.

But his doubts over the impact of the ordination of women will be widely interpreted as indicating that the Church of England should be cautious before rushing into consecrating women bishops, an issue that is currently on the agenda.

Asked in the interview whether the level of division had shaken his conviction that ordaining women priests was the right thing to do, Dr Williams said: “No, it hasn’t. It has tested it, it really has. But I think perhaps what one doesn’t always realise is how very, very normal this has come to feel for the huge majority of Anglicans and it hasn’t undermined what people feel about the ministry of the sacraments. So that now that putting it back in the bottle is not an option.”

He continued: “I don’t think it ’s ordination has transformed or renewed the Church of England in spectacular ways. Equally, I don’t think it has corrupted or ruined the Church of England in spectacular ways. It has somehow got into the bloodstream and I don’t give it a second thought these days, in terms of regular worship.”

He said there could be no going back. “I don’t see how there can be.” But with characteristic equivocation he continued: “I could just about envisage a situation in which over a very long period the Anglican Church thought again about it, but I would need to see what the theological reason for that would be and I don’t see it at the moment. I don’t think, practically, there’s going back. It is a matter of containing and managing the diversity.”

The fact that he has had any doubts at all on the issue will send shock waves through the Church of England’s liberal elite.

Liberals are already reeling over his apparent “defection” from their side over the gay issue. When chosen to succeed the evangelical Dr George Carey, he received a resounding welcome from liberals, who assumed that he would champion the gay rights agenda in the Anglican Church in the same manner as bishops in the Episcopal Church in the United States.

But for the sake of church unity, Dr Williams has turned out to be more a champion of the conservative cause. The Catholic Herald interview now raises the spectre of him following the same path over women bishops in an attempt to head off further division.

The first Anglican woman priest, Li Tim Oi, was ordained in China in 1944, but that was a one-off. The movement took off when the first women priests were ordained in the US in the 1970s. Canada, Hong Kong and New Zealand were next. Now, a majority of the 38 provinces ordain women priests, including Wales, Scotland and Ireland, although a sizeable minority still refuse to do so.

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