This is a great moment and I’m delighted to see it. Revd Pat Storey’s election as Bishop of Meath and Kildare changes things – particularly as it happens in the same week as the Church in Wales decided to admit women as bishops. It increases the pressure on the Church of England. But it also makes it much more likely that other churches, such as the Scottish Episcopal Church, will elect a woman bishop.
I’ve been thinking about my memories of Pat and of my contacts with her and with her husband Earl. She always came across to me as one of those straightforward, hard-working clergy – full of charm and with a real love of God and people. Away in the past, when Earl was Rector of Glenavy, he stirred the sleeping giant of sectarianism to the extent that he and Pat found their Rectory under attack. I was one of the people who turned up to offer solidarity and to sit with them a while. That night I found that Pat had an imperturbable courage in her as well.
May God bless her in this new ministry.