The Church of England officially believes that women may be priests and bishops; unfortunately it also believes that they may not be.This is a position too subtle for the general public to understand, and increasingly one too subtle for the Church itself. That makes it the one the Rowan Williams feels he must defend.
This morning he and John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, made a last attempt to modify the legislation that will allow women to become bishops so that it will also allow their opponents to carry on as if women weren't really bishops at all.
The legislation, and the amendment, will be debated at the General Synod in York next month. There is no guarantee at all that the Archbishops' suggestion will be accepted by the Synod.
Two years ago, it rejected very similar proposals from the same circles.
But this time there is some – diminishing – chance that opponents might actually leave in numbers, as they have been threatening to do for the last 20 years.
That might sway a few votes, which would be all that are needed; it it also always safe to bet that the synod will vote against taking any decision if it can.
The central problem is that there are a few hundred priests, and rather more lay people, who will not recognise women as priests at all, so they won't have them in their churches to celebrate the eucharist, or, if they are bishops, to confirm people, or to ordain other people.
Neither would they be able to swear an oath of obedience to them, but this is a less pressing problem, since they take no account of the oaths of obedience they do swear to male bishops either.
Up until now these opponents have been ministered to by "flying" bishops, who have not had any sacramental contact with women.
But the flying bishops are now flying off to Rome, as a response to the Pope's offer last year of a special arrangement where they can form a little autonomous group within the Roman Catholic church. Early indications are that hardly anyone else will actually follow them but they can hardly turn back now.
The remaining opponents want a legally guaranteed right to go on ignoring the existence of women bishops.
The supporters of women are prepared to grant them a practical exemption, but won't allow a separate legal category for women bishops as opposed to men. That's where the previous compromises foundered.
Now the Archbishops propose that the women voluntarily surrender some of their powers in cases where male priests don't accept them. Quite what would be voluntary about this arrangement is unclear to me and to everyone else I have spoken to.
The Archbishops' proposal says that
"where a parish had requested arrangements, by issuing a Letter of Request, the diocesan would in practice refrain from exercising certain of his or her functions in such a parish and would leave the nominated bishop to exercise those functions in the parish in question."
On the other hand, the proposal does not state which functions the bishop would give up. In any case these would have to be renegotiated on an individual basis by each successor. This looks like a recipe for endless conflict.
It is clear that there are to be no reciprocal or balancing arrangements for supporters of women priests whose bishop is an opponent.
So what on earth is Rowan up to here?
Last week his office asked Katharine Jefferts Schori, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, the American branch of the Anglican Communion, to carry her mitre rather than wearing it when she preached at Southwark Cathedral.
This was a clear piece of theatrical discourtesy.
The mitre, though it has no formal theological significance, is what in fashion is known as a "statement item".
Twelve years ago, the opponents of women bishops refused to wear theirs for the group photograph of the Lambeth Conference, lest it seem that they were acknowledging that this was in fact a gathering of bishops, even though some were women.
That was a gesture so private and obscure that no one laughed at it.
Rowan's ban on Schori's mitre was on the other hand well publicised, and fairly well laughed at.
Sometimes I think it is all part of an immensely subtle plot on his part to discredit the pomp and vanity of the established church.
At other times it all looks simply absurd.
Perhaps, in truly Anglican fashion, it is both.
SIC: GCUK