David McCall

Ordination of women When he was a priest in the Adelaide diocese (1978-1987), McCall opposed the ordination of women to the priesthood and then as the new Bishop of Willochra he signed the 1988 Ash Wednesday declaration, a statement made at the Lambeth bishops' conference rejecting the ordination of women as bishops, priests and deacons. He said later that he supported the ordination of women as deacons only. He did not see the ordination of women as priests as a matter of faith but wanted it to be a decision of the whole church. He gradually came to accept and support the ordination of women through a number of events over the years. He was shocked at what he called the heretical statement of a fellow priest that God was male and therefore priests must be male. He said that on reflection he decided that "The only ground for ordination is that a person is called by God." Later, as Bishop of Bunbury in 2001 at the 12th General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia, he seconded the motion of Muriel Porter to put a bill to the synod removing all the legal obstacles to the consecration of women to the episcopate (women bishops).

Personal life He was married to Marion Carmel McCall, who is a pilot; their eldest son, Theo D. McCall (also a priest), is chaplain of St Peter's College, Adelaide, and an adjunct lecturer at St Barnabas' College and Charles Sturt University.

McCall died in 2021, aged 81.