THE other day two Jehovah's Witnesses called at my house. When I told them I was a practising Catholic, they quickly wrapped up the conversation and moved on to my neighbour's. In the words of a school report, they probably put me down as "tries, but could do better".

People can get very het-up over matters of religious doctrine. Thank goodness the Jehovah's Witnesses on the doorstep allowed me to have different beliefs to themselves.

Earlier this week, York hosted two history-making religious ceremonies in two days. One was comparatively low-key, the ordination of University of York chaplain Ged Walsh, who thus became the first Carmelite friar to be ordained in York since the Reformation.

The other was headlined around the world – the consecration of the Church of England's first woman bishop. Both, in their way, challenged Christians in the way they viewed fellow Christians.

I'll start with Father Ged Walsh, a very approachable and down-to-earth holy man. He was ordained at my parish of Our Lady's in Acomb because it is now under the care of the Carmelite order as of three weeks ago.

When the congregation was first told of the change, last summer, there was considerable speculation about what it would mean, not to mention concern, some of which was relieved by the knowledge that the order provided at least one university chaplain. You can't do that job and be out of touch with worldly matters.

So far, all is going well. The new parish priest, Father Kevin Melody, shows no signs of trying to turn the parishioners into lay members of the Carmelites. As the Prior Provincial of the British Province of Carmelites, Father Antony Lester, said during the ordination, the parish is "knocking the new parish priest into shape".

We could also have access to spiritual help other parishes don't have.

Father Ged's first mass was one of our weekday parish masses, Father Melody being detained elsewhere on church business, and we are likely to see him again. Many of the order's friars and nuns attended his ordination and sang one of their plainsong chants. We could find the music for our Sunday masses more varied in future.

The nuns are from an enclosed convent just south of York, so it was a rare and welcome chance to talk to them and get to know them.

Unless your life brings you into contact with today's monks, friars and nuns, your impressions of them will be shaped by novels such as Ellis Peter's Brother Cadfael series of detective stories, history lessons and historical television documentaries.

By this time next year, all and any out-of-date ideas my parish has about the religious orders will have been dispelled.

For some members of the Church of England, Monday's consecration of the Rt Rev Libby Lane was a triumph for modern tolerance; for others, it was not far short of heretical.

The church certainly put on a big display of unity and celebration with a priestly procession far greater than the annual Minster processions for Christmas and Easter masses.

Rt Rev Libby Lane is unlikely to be the only Church of England woman bishop for long and although she would be the first to say that she is a bishop first and a woman second, simply by being a woman, she will bring a different dimension to the church's life. Women do see life in a different way to men, just as members of religious orders have a different way of looking at life to the ordinary church-goer.

I hope that those who opposed her and the women who will follow her into the bishops' ranks will leave their books on theological dogma on the bookshelves and see her new position as an opportunity for enlarging their spiritual life, rather than a blot on their religious landscape. They could be pleasantly surprised.