There’s an interesting post up at the Episcopal Cafe on whether there should be age-limits/work requirements for candidates before they enter seminary. I know some diocese already have an informal rule on this but I don’t know how many…

It’s an interesting topic and one well worth discussing: what’s the trade-off between a young person with fresh ideas and a true passion for ministry who has followed it at great personal cost (like–say–massive student loan debt that a clergy salary really doesn’t help pay down…) and a second-career person with “real-world/life” experience who has deferred their calling or come to it later in life. I do think there are benefits to both…

One word on the experience note, though, some people seem surprised at the recent trend of bishops who have so little experience as priests… For second-career people, the time that they will be priests and be able to actively serve the church is shorter than the first-career folks…

I didn’t go into that over there, and I won’t go into it now because I get so fixated on one particular facet of this problem that hits painfully close to home–it’s on the conflicting messages and the reality of the church.

The church says it wants young clergy.

The church says it wants women clergy.

But what it demonstrably doesn’t want is young women clergy. I haven’t done any kind of systematic survey but I’d bet money a systematic one would confirm my suspicions currently based on anecdotal evidence. The absolute last group of people to be hired out of any group of new priests are young women of childbearing age–especially those who have small children.

It’s a disgrace. The message we get over and over again is that the church really doesn’t want to ordain women unless they promise to act like men.

If you’re going to say that you ordain women then ordain them–then hire them!