CRACKS are beginning to show in the stained-glass ceiling, after it emerged that nearly 50 per cent of those training for the clergy are women.

Latest figures show that 283 women were recommended for training last year, compared with 295 men — a narrowing margin that campaigners predict could signal the beginning of a female majority within the Church of England.

In only 14 years, since the General Synod gave permission for them to be ordained, women have come to occupy 20 per cent of chaplainships and 50 per cent of non- stipendiary positions. The rapid advance of women in the ordained clergy is highlighted this week in a report published by Demos, the think-tank.

Hilary De Lyon, the author of the report, said: “The clergy has caught up in 10 years what other professions took 30, 40, 50 years to achieve.

“If it has reached that level of 20 per cent in just 12 years, then the projection must be that it will reach around 50 per cent in the next 12, 14 years.”

Ms De Lyon, who is also the chief executive of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said it was possible that women could outnumber men in the lower ranks of the Church, but gave warning that full equal representation would not be achieved until the first woman bishop.

If, as expected, the General Synod eventually votes in favour of ending the all-male episcopate, the impact on gender balance within the clergy will be immediate, thanks to the “bottleneck” effect created by years of restrictions, Ms De Lyon said. “I would say that the likelihood is that, as soon as that legal barrier is removed there will already be a lot of women ready for promotion.”

The number of women in training has more than doubled since 2005. However, of the 283 who went forward this year, only 150 — compared with 227 men — declared an interest in full-time paid posts, with the others opting for non-stipendiary positions.

Christina Rees, of the campaign group Women and the Church (Watch), insisted that clergywomen will catch up with their male counterparts in ten to fifteen years.

She said: “There are some young male conservatives coming through, and they are entering a world in which women will be considered equal.

“They will either have to say to themselves, ‘Am I prepared to share the world with women?’ or ‘Do I go to another church where women are treated as second-class citizens?’ If they don’t they will have to get another job, because they are subscribing to a view which is fast becoming obsolete.”

However, a hard core of opponents maintains that the increasing female presence around the pulpit is degrading the priesthood.

Geoffrey Kirk, the general secretary of Forward in Faith, a traditionalist umbrella group opposed to female ordination, said: “The floodgates have now opened. The priesthood will become predominately female within my lifetime, and the consequence will be that men just won’t want to do it. The ordained priesthood in England will become a female retirement home.”

After two years of training Michelle Edmonds, 36, is preparing for her new role as a minister of St Matthew’s Church, Croydon.

She will be ordained at Southwark Cathedral next Sunday, and will complete a year as a deaconess before taking on the full-time stipendiary role.

The former district nurse said: “I think that is a follow-on from the momentous decision 14 years ago.

“It’s sad that some people still hold rigid views. If you feel a calling you are going to follow it, no matter what sex you are. People who are against female ministers are against others fulfilling their God- given potential.”

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