By Chrsanthus Ikeh
The Church of England has appointed Rev. Libby Lane as the first female bishop, ending centuries of male leadership of the Church and coming 20 years after women were allowed to become priests.
Libby was appointed on Wednesday, December 17, 2014; five months after the church ended a long and divisive dispute by voting to allow women to serve as bishops.
Lane, who called her promotion “an unexpected joy,” made her first act as bishop leading a prayer for the victims of the Taliban school massacre in Pakistan.
Speaking on her appointment, she said: ‘I am very conscious of all those who have gone before me, women and men, who for decades have looked forward to this moment.’
Libby Lane, who will be pronounced a Bishop in January 2015, was ordained a deacon in 1993 and a priest in 1994, serving her curacy in Blackburn, Lancashire. Since 2010, she has also held the role of Dean of Women in Ministry for the diocese of Chester.
