
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 8, 1992                   TAG: 9203080146
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: PERTH, AUSTRALIA                                LENGTH: Short

AUSTRALIAN ANGLICANS ORDAIN FEMALE PRIESTS

Ten women were ordained Saturday as the first female priests of Australia's Anglican Church, hours after a judge rejected a legal challenge to block the ceremony.

Applause erupted at St. George's Anglican Church after the Archbishop of Perth, Peter Carnley, ordained the women and one man at a televised ceremony.

This "had to be resolved and there should now be a great sense of relief across Australia," he told worshippers who jammed the cathedral.

Justice Kerry White, speaking for the Western Australian Supreme Court, rejected a challenge by disgruntled Anglicans on Friday that the ordination would contravene the church's constitution.

He noted that the Australian church has no official policy on women in the priesthood, a position that led archbishops in several dioceses to believe ordination of women was permissible. - Associated Press

by CNB