Perth Now: Bishop Kay Goldsworthy - up close and personal

FORMER students of Perth College fondly remember their chaplain, Kay Goldsworthy, roaring off from the school on her husband Jeri's motor bike with smoke trailing from the exhaust pipe.

Today Kay Goldsworthy -- mother of two teenage boys -- is blazing a trail of another sort with her appointment as Australia's first woman bishop. She was ordained this morning by Anglican Archbishop of Perth, Roger Herft.

The former Archdeacon at St George's Cathedral has been waiting for this moment since the age of 16 when she rang Anglican Church authorities in Melbourne to find out how to join the ministry.

Then after years of staring -- like her clergical sisters -- at the stained glass ceiling, it finally came about after a meeting of bishops in Newcastle, New South Wales, this week cleared the way for her appointment.

Ms Goldsworthy is part of a Perth vanguard, led by Anglican Archbishop Roger Herft, which promotes women leaders in the Anglican church.

The highpoint in her career for the woman who started her career in Melbourne came after she had endured parishioners leaving her church, bomb scares and in some cases being spat on before she came to work in pastoral care at St George's Cathedral.

Ms Goldsworthy was one of 10 female priests ordained by the former Anglican Archbishop of Perth, Peter Carnley, in 1992. At that time there was an exodus from the church of those who opposed the move.

Sydney Archibishop Peter Jensen, who heads Australia's most influential diocese, was one of those opposed on conscientious grounds.

But he does not plan to force a formal breakaway from the Anglican Church of Australia, as is occurring in Canada and the USA. Read more
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