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Kay Maree Goldsworthy (born 1956) is an Australian bishop of the Anglican Church of Australia. She is the current archbishop of Perth in the Province of Western Australia.ABC Online Upon her installation as archbishop, on 10 February 2018, she became the first female archbishop in the Anglican Church of Australia. Previously, she served as diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Gippsland in the south-eastern Australian state of Victoria.
In the Australian 2017 Queen's Birthday Honours List, Goldsworthy was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for "distinguished service to religion through the Anglican Church of Australia, as a pioneer and role model for women, to church administration, and to pastoral care and equality".
In 2017 Goldsworthy was elected Archbishop of Perth and installed on 10 February 2018 as the archbishop and metropolitan of Western Australia.
She gave as her first priorities: properly responding to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, ensuring those who had been abused were cared for, rebuilding trust in the church as a place of grace and healing, addressing violence against women and children in the community, supporting women in leadership positions and listening to the views of Anglicans in the Perth diocese.
In September 2007, the Australian church's appellate tribunal ruled that there was no constitutional impediment to women becoming bishops, but agreed to defer any appointments until 2008. The report of the appellate tribunal considered the following questions:
Question 1: Is there anything in the Constitution which would now prevent the consecration of a woman in priest's orders as a bishop in this Church in a diocese which by ordinance has adopted the Law of the Church of England Clarification Canon 1992? Answer: As regards diocesan bishops: No, provided that the woman has been duly elected as the diocesan bishop and has had her election duly confirmed in accordance with the criteria for canonical fitness set out in s74(1) of the Constitution.A subsequent bishops' conference, in Newcastle, New South Wales, in April 2008, cleared the way for the first consecration of a woman as a bishop in Australia.
Goldsworthy's appointment was opposed on conscientious grounds from some sections of the church, particularly in the Diocese of Sydney led by its then archbishop, Peter Jensen. The Sydney diocese indicated that if Goldsworthy visited in an official capacity she would be unable to perform any duties as a bishop and could only act as a deacon. David Mulready, then bishop of the Diocese of North West Australia, said "I come from a part of the Anglican Church that takes the Bible seriously and believes that the Bible prohibits what is about to happen ... I think it's novel, I think it's provocative, I think it's divisive and the archbishop knows all of that." On 17 September 2023, as part of the Movement for the Ordination of Women 40th anniversary celebrations, Goldsworthy preached about God's grace and forgiveness at Christ Church St Laurence, Sydney, the first woman bishop to preach in an Anglican church in Sydney. In the lead up to the service, Julia Baird, journalist, former co-convenor of the Sydney Movement for the Ordination of Women, interviewed Goldsworthy and Michael Jensen on the current affairs program The Drum on 15 September The Drum, 15 September 2023 and on 16 September published an article in the Sydney Morning Herald about the Sydney diocese views on the ordination of women as priests and its refusal to recognise Goldsworthy as a bishop in its diocese.
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