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The storms are gathering after the US Episcopal Church's General Convention as its new Presiding Bishop (their preferred term for 'Archbishop'), making the Rt. Rev. 52, the first woman Presiding Bishop of the 2.2 million member denomination, the first woman of Archbishop rank in the Anglican Communion, and the Communion's first female primate. She will be installed on November 4 at Washington's National Cathedral and serve a nine-year term in office. Her clerical career has been something of a whirlwind: ordained a priest 1994 (at the age of 40), consecrated a bishop in 2001, elected primate in 2006.

Rowan Williams has already called Bishop Jefferts Schori to convey his best wishes, but her election will cause serious problems for the Communion. First, she will now take her place among the Primates' Meeting, in the company of leaders from the global south, most of whom do not even support the ordaination of women to the priesthood. We wait to see what the international Anglican reaction will be. Rowan Williams' to the election reads:

I send my greetings to Bishop Katharine and she has my prayers and good wishes as she takes up a deeply demanding position at a critical time. She will bring many intellectual and pastoral gifts to her new work and I am pleased to see the strength of her commitment to mission and to the millennium development goals. Her election will undoubtedly have an impact on the collegial life of the Anglican Primates and it also brings into focus some continuing issues in several of our ecumenical dialogues. We are continuing to pray for the General Convention of the Episcopal Church as it confronts a series of exceptional choices.

Second, the election of a female primate may lead to a split within ECUSA itself. Already, Bishop of Forth Worth diocese (which does not ordain women to the priesthood) has asked Rowan Williams to provide . There are two other dioceses within ECUSA which do not support the ordination of women; they will now be looking to see what response Canterbury offers to Fort Worth.

The traditionalist Anglican Communion Network has given to the election, in the words of the Network's Moderator Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh:

Any words the General Convention might speak about compliance with the Windsor Report will have to be read in light of this election. Many of us had prayed for clarity to come out of this 75th General Convention as regards the true intentions of the Episcopal Church vis a vis the Anglican Communion and the orthodox in North America. Sometimes, in God's permissive will, our prayers are answered in ways we had not anticipated.

Bishop Duncan's comments are a gentle hint of the distress the election has caused in conservative Anglican circles in the United States. Traditionalists had hoped this General Convention would offer a clear statement of compliance with the . Instead, the Convention has elected a female bishop who voted in favour of the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire and in favour of the blessing of same sex unions.