My dear Sisters,

I congratulate the Church of England and you yourselves my dear Sisters on this 20th anniversary of the Church of England’s splendid decision to ordain women to the priesthood.

As with our own Anglican Church of Southern Africa, amazing enrichment has come to your Church from this, yes, epoch making decision. We realised how much we had denied ourselves until 1992. Now we have the first two Anglican women bishops on the African continent and we are asking ourselves why we were so stupid for so long.

In your own Church, women have already demonstrated your splendid giftedness; I know without looking it all up on Google that women are the Deans of at least three Cathedrals: Salisbury,York and Norwich. Isn’t that just something? And there is a noteworthy clutch of women canons and isn’t the Archbishop of Canterbury’s chaplain a woman?

Yippee to you all. I hope I can join in the consecration of the first C of E woman bishop!

God be praised for all of you. Thank you for all that you are bringing to enrich our fellowship.

Much love and blessings,

Arch.

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu

Capetown