ENI — Three women who serve as presidents of the World Council of Churches have expressed “considerable concern and great disappointment” about the lack of women in senior staff leadership positions in the world’s biggest church grouping.
Speaking in early September to a meeting in Geneva of the WCC’s central committee, Mary Tanner of the Church of England, who is the WCC’s president for Europe, said the three women were “sad that we’ve moved away from the hard-won commitment” to the goal of equal participation between women and men in the life of the WCC.
The WCC’s six program directors are all men, as are six “key management personnel” from the general secretary down, with the exception of the executive director for planning and integration, who is retiring at the end of September.
The central committee unanimously approved a recommendation that “those responsible for staff appointments give due attention to regional, confessional and gender balances, particularly the presence of women in all levels of staff leadership groups.”
