FORT WORTH -- Episcopal Bishop Jack Iker, while still an unrelenting opponent of women in the priesthood, said yesterday that he has worked out a compromise that will allow female priests to serve parishes in the Diocese of Fort Worth for the first time.

Iker's announcement came a week before the Episcopal General Convention in Philadelphia, where a vote is scheduled on a canon to force all dioceses to accept female priests.

While some lauded the plan as a conciliatory gesture, others called it unworkable and say it would not calm the debate over the acceptance of female clergy.

"It looks like progress, but it isn't," said Katie Sherrod of Fort Worth, a board member of the national Episcopal Women's Caucus. "It's a ploy to defuse debate before the general convention and to confuse the debate over what's going on in this diocese."

Under the plan, women would be allowed to serve as priests in the 23- county Fort Worth Diocese but would be under the authority of Dallas Episcopal Bishop James Stanton, who favors ordination of women, Iker said.

"We worked out an agreement with the Dallas Diocese that demonstrates that there is a pastoral and nonlegalistic way to allow women who aspire to be priests to serve," he said.

Jan James, whose home parish is St. Alban's Episcopal Church in Arlington, is one of the first female candidates for the priesthood to come under the compromise plan.

James, 49, who has a master of divinity degree from Texas Christian University's Brite Divinity School, said she has felt an "insistent call" to the priesthood for many years but met many roadblocks.

"I'm very grateful to be able to go to Dallas, and I'm grateful to Bishop Iker for facilitating this," James said yesterday. "This was not an option under Bishop [Clarence] Pope."

Pope was Iker's predecessor.

The Rev. Mark Cannaday, rector at St. Alban's, favors ordination of women. But he said he believes that respect for the bishop and the logistical problems of having a Fort Worth priest reporting to a Dallas bishop will deter parishes from embracing the compromise.

"It is an offer that is there, but I just don't know of anyone who is going to take him up on it," Cannaday said. "I doubt anybody will."

Although the Episcopal Church formally approved female priests in 1976, a "conscience clause" has allowed bishops to refuse to ordain women. Of more than 100 U.S. dioceses, only four, including Fort Worth, refuse to ordain or allow ministry of female priests.

The Fort Worth Diocese has been a center of opposition to ordination of women as priests and bishops for several years. Pope was founding president of the Episcopal Synod of America, a national group that was formed during a meeting in Fort Worth in 1989.

The synod, still based in Fort Worth, holds that the national church leadership is straying from biblical standards and has become too liberal.

Iker and others say the ordination of female priests goes against biblical teachings and church tradition.

Under Iker's plan, any woman from the Fort Worth Diocese who asks Iker for permission to enter the priesthood will be taken into the ordination processes of the Diocese of Dallas and, ultimately, be ordained by Stanton.

The Rev. Canon D. Bruce MacPherson, assistant to the bishop in the Diocese of Dallas, credited Iker with initiating the arrangement.

"Were it not for Bishop Iker's support, it would not exist," he said. "It's not something that we could unilaterally put into place in this diocese."

Sherrod, said that Iker's plan is unworkable and that a canon forcing all dioceses to support female priests is still needed.

As a part of her training toward the priesthood, James served at St. Alban's and is working with the Rev. Sherm Gagnon, rector of St. Christopher Episcopal Church in Fort Worth.

Gagnon said he would love to hire James as an associate pastor if his congregation could afford it.

Iker met recently with a number of priests who favor the ordination of women and told them of the compromise, Gagnon said.

"I think this is a gain," Gagnon said. "It shows good faith on Bishop Iker's part. It does not solve the whole issue."

Sherrod agreed, saying she doesn't know whether Iker's compromise will calm the controversy about female priests in the Fort Worth Diocese because it brings up many unanswered questions.

"If a female priest in Fort Worth is under oversight of the bishop of Dallas, would the parish itself be under oversight of Dallas, too?" Sherrod asked. "Where would money from the parish go -- to Fort Worth or to Dallas? Would the female priest get a vote in the Fort Worth Diocese?"

Bishop Stanton spoke of the plan in a recent column in `Esprit,' the Dallas diocesan newspaper. He noted that a procedure had been worked out for ordination of women from Fort Worth.

"And the bishop of Fort Worth has made it known that a church wishing to call a woman to ministry in that diocese will be permitted to do so provided that the person in question is licensed and given pastoral oversight by another bishop," Stanton wrote.

As for James, her pastor has counseled her to be patient.

"Women have a longer row to hoe, I'm afraid," Cannaday said. "Patience is the biggest thing I encourage her to have. Be patient. And she has been."

Staff writer Matthew Brady contributed to this report.

Follow up article: Episcopal Bishop Iker speaks against canon on women in clergy

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