Britain gets first female bishop

London, December 17

Britain today got its first female bishop in the 500-year history of Church of England, exactly a month after historic changes were made to the law to end centuries of male domination in the church.

Reverend Libby Lane (48) will become the new Bishop of Stockport, a post in the north of England that has been vacant since May.

Lane has been the vicar at St Peter’s Hale and St Elizabeth’s Ashley in Cheshire since April 2007. She expressed her promotion “an unexpected joy,” and lead a prayer for the victims of the Taliban school massacre in Pakistan as her first act as bishop.

“It is an unexpected joy for me to be here today,” Lane said after being named in Stockport, a town outside Manchester in northwest England.

“It’s a remarkable day for me and I realise an historic day for the church. I’m honoured and thankful to be called to serve as the next bishop of Stockport and excited, though not a little daunted, to be trusted with such a ministry.

“I’m very conscious of those recognised and unrecognised who have prayed and worked and struggled for this moment.”

The general synod, the church’s governing body, had voted to back plans for female bishops in July and formally adopted legislation on November 17 and comes 20 years after women became priests.

Lane was ordained a deacon in 1993 and a priest in 1994, serving her curacy in Blackburn, Lancashire. Since 2010 she has also held the role of Dean of Women in Ministry for the Diocese of Cheshire.

Her interests include learning to play the saxophone, supporting Manchester United Football Club, reading and doing cryptic crosswords. Her husband George — a chaplain at Manchester Airport — is also a priest, and they were one of the first married couples in the Church of England to be ordained together.

Prime Minister David Cameron congratulated Lane and said: “This is an historic appointment and an important step forward for the Church towards greater equality in its senior positions”. — PTI