The Bakersfield Californian reports that a woman will preside at the Eucharist in the Diocese of San Joaquin for the first time.
… a visiting female priest from Los Angeles will celebrate Communion toward the end of the Mass.
“In this diocese that IS a big deal,” Vivian wrote to The Californian in an e-mail.
The Rev. Elizabeth Davenport, of St. John’s Episcopal Church, who has also been the senior associate dean of religious life at USC for the last five years, said the San Joaquin Diocese under seceding bishop the Rt. Rev. John-David Schofield did not allow women priests, including visiting priests, to celebrate Communion.
But because Schofield’s duties are currently constrained or “inhibited” by Jefferts Schori during a 60-day waiting period before a possible ecclesiastical trial, the Episcopal remnant within the local diocese is at liberty to employ the services of female priests, whom Jefferts Schori supports.
Read it all here.