Sydney, Austrailia - Australia will have its first female bishop when Archdeacon Kay Goldsworthy is consecrated in Perth next month, Anglican church leaders announced Friday. Goldsworthy, 51, in 1992 was among the first cohort of women priests.
Sydney, a diocese that remains opposed to women bishops, will not recognize Goldsworthy as one.
"I have traveled a path where there's always been someone or some group that doesn't agree or doesn't want to receive your ministry, so I won't feel slighted," she told Australian news agency AAP. "I'm always sorry that we have such differences and I wish it were different."
Women already serve as bishops in the United States, Canada and New Zealand.
"We have been a while catching up in Australia," she said. "Twenty years ago we weren't yet ordaining women as priests, but the time has come and I know that the great majority of Australian Anglicans warmly welcome this day, and the fact that there is no longer any discrimination against women in pastoral leadership."