From Ireland-Ireland’s only woman bishop has spoken of the disbelief she has encountered as a result of being female in such high office in the church.
Most Rev Pat Storey revealed she was once mistaken for a secretary by a male bishop and recently, when she presented a cheque in a bank, it was handed back to her and she was told “the bishop will have to sign that himself”.
Bishop Storey (57), who holds the third most senior position in the Church of Ireland House of Bishops, became the first woman bishop in Britain and Ireland in 2013.
Speaking on Thursday at DCU’s All Hallows campus on “Breaking through the stained-glass ceiling”, she recalled that, when appointed, “I was much more conscious of the challenge of the top level of church leadership than of the whole ‘first woman’ thing.”
Over time, however, she would be reminded of her gender. “Recently I went to the bank to lodge a cheque. I handed it over to the cashier who took one look at it, passed it back over the desk to me and said: ‘The bishop will have to sign that himself.’ I smiled at her, passed it back over the desk, and said ‘I am he’. She was, of course, mortified. People always are.”
More here-
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/no-i-m-not-the-secretary-the-trials-of-ireland-s-only-woman-bishop-1.3213460
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