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It's twenty years since the Church of England first ordained women priests. I was teaching then in theological colleges and later this week I'm meeting some of my former female students who were among the first to be ordained. They're coming to London for the national celebration in St Paul's Cathedral on Saturday. In the decades before 1994 the quality of women's lives had changed immeasurably. This was reflected in those first women to be ordained. They had been to university. They had learnt to manage a job and a family. Some were already part way through a career and in positions of responsibility. But the Church was another matter: a patriarchal institution and an apparent bias against women in theology. I remember one student pointing out in angry astonishment how theologians hardly seemed to notice the women disciples of Jesus even though they played significant roles in the gospels: they accompanied Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem, were at the foot of his cross, knew where his body had been entombed and were first to encounter him Risen. Sometimes my students wondered whether they should follow the advice of the Harvard theologian, Mary Daly. She once ended a sermon in the university chapel by saying that this sexism would not change unless women made an exodus from the Church as real as the exodus of the Hebrew slaves from Egypt. She then left the pulpit and led women in the congregation out of the chapel. Many never returned. And in both America and Europe other women also gave up on organised religion – though not necessarily on spirituality or for ever. It seemed clear that if the Church were to serve women and engage with the issues that concerned them, it had to enable them to play a full part in its life. In the Church of England that included ordination and facing down patriarchy. So what difference have the women priests made over these 20 years? I asked a lay member of my current congregation what she thought. Her reply was immediate – though perhaps not all women priests would thank her for putting it this way. She thought the portrayal of the Vicar of Dibley in the television series got it right. The fictional Geraldine Granger was not stuffy, not pompous and was motivated by a real affection for her parishioners whose welfare was her overriding concern. In other words, women priests have helped local churches maintain a commitment to the well-being of their local communities. And that is something that lies at the heart of last week's debate about the place of the Church, specifically the established church, in contemporary society. Establishment is as much local as it is national and it's dependent on the Church in the parishes always seeking to be outward-facing and inclusive. Women priests have been crucial on both counts.