Rev. Joy Carroll Wallis
Rev. Joy Carroll Wallis, centre, with the Bishop of Dover, Richard Llewellin. Women priests have been allowed in the Anglican Church since 1992. Photo: PAUL GROVER

The new rules issued by the Vatican puts attempts at ordaining women among the “most serious crimes” alongside paedophilia and will be handled by investigators from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), considered the successor to the Inquistion.

Women attempting to be priests, and those who try to ordain them, already faced automatic excommunication but the new decree goes further and enshrines the action as “a crime against sacraments”.