'We asked for bread, and you gave us a stone': the cry that rang out from the gallery of Church House, Westminster, after one of the earliest debates over women's ordination nearly twenty years ago demonstrates that even in Church politics you should never despair. The mills of God may grind slowly but they grind exceeding sure, or so those who fought for so long for the introduction of women priests into the poor old battered ecclesia anglicana may now feel entitled to claim.

LRB 3 December 1992 | PDF Download