Anglican Communion News Service

[Reuters By Joe Brock] The next archbishop of Canterbury is confident he will consecrate a female bishop, he said on Thursday, two days after the Church of England voted against allowing women to become bishops.

Bishops and clergy on Tuesday in the General Synod, the Church legislature, comfortably backed the change but lay members were four votes short of a two-thirds majority.

"It's clear that woman are going to be bishops in the Church of England," said Justin Welby, who will take over from Rowan Williams as the spiritual leader of the Anglican wing of world Christianity at the end of the year.

"It was a pretty grim day for the whole church. There is a lot to be done but I am absolutely confident that at some point I will consecrate a woman bishop," Welby said during a visit to promote religious reconciliation in Nigeria, which has the world's biggest mixed Christian-Muslim population.

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