The Church of England has released its diverse agenda for Synod which will see a number of current issues debated next month, including women bishops and the recommendations of a special report issued Monday.

|TOP|The agenda of the February Synod, to be held at Church House, Westminster, from Monday 6th to Thursday 9th February, is headed by a key debate on the process to permit the ordination of women bishops, with other issues for consideration including rural affairs, hospital and healthcare chaplaincies, and the human genome.

The Synod will consider the consecration of women bishops in three stages at the February Synod.

A wide ranging debate on the Report of the House of Bishops’ Women Bishops Group on the Tuesday morning will follow a Monday afternoon presentation on the ecumenical responses to the Rochester Report, ‘Women Bishops in the Church of England’.

The Guildford Group Report, introduced Monday by the Bishop of Guildford, the Rt. Rev. Christopher Hill, paved the way forward for women bishops to be ordained by the year 2012 and the possibility of a female Archbishop of Canterbury.

|AD|The third stage will be a debate on the Thursday morning on a motion which takes forward the recommendation in the Guildford Report for Transferred Episcopal Arrangements and invites further work on the theological, ecumenical and canonical implications of this approach for the July Synod.

A debate on the Church of England’s rural network will focus on the major contribution of rural churches to rural community development, as well as call on dioceses to ensure that rural churches are adequately resourced to enable a continuing and effective Christian presence in rural areas.

The resolution also urges the Government to give practical recognition to the contribution of rural churches.

Also on the agenda are conservations between the Church of England and the Baptist Union of Great Britain between 1992 and 2005.

The report of these conversations takes a closer look at the unexpected convergences in Christian initiation and pastoral oversight between the two Churches, as well as laying down proposals for a closer collaboration between Anglicans and Baptists.

Other issues to be debated at Synod next month include the Church buildings heritage, Church colleges and universities, ethical investment, and the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade.