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Bishop Ron Haines Has Died Seventh Bishop of Washington
The Rt. Rev. Ronald H. Haines, the seventh Episcopal Bishop of Washington, died on March 21 of cancer at his home in Lancaster , Pa. He was 73. The time of his death — 2:55 p.m. on Good Friday, just shy of the "ninth hour" — seemed fitting, several friends and former colleagues remarked. But they agreed that Haines himself — an unassuming man with a dry sense of humor — would have laughed and said, "You mustn't read too much into these things." Haines' low key, pastoral leadership style served him well during his decade as Bishop of Washington (1990 to 2000; he had served as suffragan bishop since 1986), as he dealt gracefully with a series of groundbreaking and sometimes challenging events. These included the 1990 ordination of Elizabeth Carl, a lesbian living in a committed relationship; his 1992 nomination of Nathan Baxter as dean of Washington National Cathedral — the second African American to serve in that capacity; and the 1992 election and consecration of Jane Holmes Dixon as suffragan bishop — the second woman in the Episcopal Church and the third in the Anglican Communion to achieve that status. These events all shaped Haines' episcopacy, furthering his vision for a diocese where, "empowered by the Spirit of God, and not by our own strength, we respond to Jesus' call as we become a community of brothers and sisters in Christ where all are accepted and none are despised." (Diocesan vision statement, 1994). "He was staunch in his support of church leadership roles for women, gays, lesbians and other marginalized people, and throughout his episcopacy he took quiet but effectively courageous stands on their behalf," said Linda Freeman, who served as moderator of the Diocesan Council from 1994 to1998. Haines' leadership of the Diocese of Washington began some months before his official election as its bishop: He was named Bishop Pro Tempore in 1989 following the sudden death of Bishop John T. Walker at the age of 64. "When Bishop Walker died, he was seen as a very strong, non-anxious presence in the diocese," said Paul Cooney , canon for the ordinary, who served as his chancellor from 1992 to1996. "He helped the diocese move through the grieving process for a Bishop who had been so well loved and died so unexpectedly." Haines came to Washington from the Diocese of Western North Carolina, where he served from 1968 to 1989 as rector of St. Francis', Rutherfordton and then as the Bishop's deputy. A graduate of the University of Delaware School of Engineering, he came to ordained ministry after a 10-year career as an engineer. He worked for several consulting engineering firms in the Philadelphia area, for the Reynolds Aluminum Co. in Richmond , Va. , and was employed for five years (1962-67) by the New York firm Handy & Harman, where he was involved in the development and marketing of alloys for brazing aluminum and a karat gold casting alloy. His interest in the ministry was kindled during his time in Richmond , after his wife, Mary Terrell Haines, became seriously ill. The couple, who married in 1956 and have six children, were drawn closer to their faith, and became lay ministers. Haines began his theological studies at the Mercer School of Theology in the Diocese of Long Island, and was ordained a deacon in 1965. He earned his MDiv from the General Theological Seminary in New York in 1967. In 1979, he received his MST degree from the seminary, and was later awarded honorary doctorates by GTS and the Virginia Theological Seminary. His first job as a priest was at St. Paul 's Church in the Bronx , where he served as assistant for a year before receiving a call to St. Francis', N.C. During his time in North Carolina, he founded the Small Church Leadership Institute, designed to equip lay and clergy leaders from small congregations. "That was one of the things that was attractive to the Diocese of Washington when he was called there as suffragan," said Baxter, now the bishop of Central Pennsylvania , who first met Haines when he served on the Institute's faculty in the early 1980s. "I thought that he brought really a special combination of the clarity of vision an engineer possesses — an orderly sense of how things work, clear decision making — with the heart of a pastor," Cooney said. "He also brought a degree of courage that was remarkable." That courage was called for almost immediately, when the ordination of Carl, who had been a postulant under Walker , went ahead with Haines' blessing. "Neither of us sought the publicity that came," Carl said. "But Bishop Haines believed that our diocese had helped the church by discerning conscientiously and prayerfully to the best of our abilities and then standing strong in the storm that followed. He treated the people of the diocese like grownups, and it was not just lip service for him to say that people of good conscience could disagree about things. He was proud of us." Carl, who formed a lasting friendship with Haines, first met him at a dinner for postulants in New York City where the two discovered their mutual interest in welcoming the previously unchurched into the fold. "I asked if he had ever baptized in a river in North Carolina , and we had a good laugh about how they hadn't taught him about upstream and downstream in Chelsea Square," she recalled. "I began that night to know the depth of his Christian faith and joy, and that there did not seem to be a phony bone in this tall man's body." "To see someone who balanced the challenges he faced as the leader of a significant diocese and religious institutions, and that he could do that and keep his sense of humor — I think that says a lot about his spirituality," Baxter said. "I found him to be a man of such courage and integrity and fun," said Dixon , who served with him for more than eight years as suffragan. "He was a man of vision, he was a man of prudence. It was very important for him that the diocese be on firm financial ground, and he worked toward that." Haines will be remembered for his fiscal responsibility; for establishing a unified diocesan budget that allowed for greater transparency and for creating an advisory group to manage the disbursement of funds from the Ruth Gregory Soper Memorial Trust. "These are not glamorous roles," Baxter said. "He will not be remembered as the most glamorous bishop. But he will be remembered for his faithfulness and his strong commitment that the institutions be fiscally strong. At the end of his tenure, both the cathedral and the diocese had balanced budgets." Always the engineer, Haines "liked to be hands on with doing good works," said Ann Talty, the diocese's governance officer. "He went personally to St. Philip's, Anacostia, and worked on it. He worked personally with Habitat for Humanity on several houses. In Honduras , when we went down there to Colonia Episcopal, he was there with a hammer and saw and the whole bit." Additional accomplishments include his work with mission congregations; his efforts to establish youth leadership in the diocese; his staunch commitment to anti-racism training; and his insistence on establishing sexual misconduct training in the diocese. Following Carl's ordination and subsequent contentious Diocesan Conventions, he also started a group called Continuing the Dialogue. "He wanted people to be able to talk, not fight, about it and actually go somewhere with that," Talty said. During the last weeks of his illness, Baxter visited Haines at his home in Lancaster . "I said, Ron, this has really been a lot for you," he said. But Haines shrugged it off with characteristic good grace. "God is good," he said. "I may not have got everything I wanted, but I got everything I needed. And I thank God for that."
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