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Washington Window
Vol. 75, No. 7, June 2006

During the 75th General Convention of the Episcopal Church, the House of Bishops will elect a new Presiding Bishop, whose election must be confirmed by the House of Deputies. The 26th Presiding Bishop will be formally installed during a Nov. 4 service at Washington National Cathedral.

At least seven names will be formally submitted to a joint session of the House of Bishops and House of Deputies on June 17, including a slate of four recommended by the Joint Nominating Committee for the Election of the Presiding Bishop. The election is scheduled for June 18.

The nominating committee's slate is: the Rt. Rev. Neil Alexander, Bishop of Atlanta; the Rt. Rev. Edwin F. Gulick Jr., Bishop of Kentucky; the Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Bishop of Nevada; and the Rt. Rev. Henry N. Parsley, Jr., Bishop of Alabama. Additional nominees are: the Rt. Rev. Stacy Sauls, Bishop of Lexington; the Rt. Rev. Charles Edward Jenkins III, Bishop of Louisiana; and the Rt. Rev. Francisco Duque-Gomez, Bishop of Colombia.

Others could also be included for consideration, as nominations will be accepted until June 17. Eligible bishops are those who have a seat and vote in the convention's House of Bishops.
The 26th Presiding Bishop will succeed the Most Rev. Frank Tracy Griswold III, whose nine-year term ends on Nov. 1.

Neil Alexander, 52, became Bishop of Atlanta in 2001. The diocese has 53,363 members in 93 congregations.

Raised in the Moravian tradition and educated in Lutheran schools, he was ordained as a Lutheran pastor in 1980, but joined the Episcopal Church after studying and teaching the history of worship and liturgics at Yale and Berkeley Divinity Schools. In 1988, he was ordained a deacon, then priest in the Diocese of New Jersey.

"I made my switch to the Episcopal Church and have been happy ever since," said in an interview with Episcopal Life. "There are the structures and the theology and the people - so much about the Episcopal Church that I dearly love - but at the end of the day [it is] the profound spiritual connections that I have carried with me all my life, and the Episcopal Church makes room for those spiritual connections to flower."

He voted to confirm the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson's election as Bishop of New Hampshire, and in his book, This Far By Grace, Alexander explained his support for the development of rites for blessing same sex relationships. He returned to Atlanta, however, and reiterated his view that no such blessings should occur until the church is decided about the issue.

In the summer of 2004, a priest in the diocese conducted a same-sex blessing. After consulting with the Standing Committee, the bishop inhibited the priest for 90 days. "I know it was painful for him," said the Macon priest, Wesley Smith. "It got everyone's attention."

"His first approach is always pastoral, trying to help [people] through these things," said Gini Peterson, a convention deputy in 2000. "But the bottom line [is]: He is the bishop, and he has had to make some hard stands. And he is able to do it."

"I really believe that the genius of Anglicanism is the marvelous international web of relationships. It is not about structures; it's about relationships," said Alexander. "I think the presiding bishop has to play a pretty key role in keeping us focused on the fact that what's not going to save us is structures and resolutions and agreements. What is going to be important to us are relationships."

Herb Gunn of Episcopal Life contributed to this report

Charles E. Jenkins, 54, became Bishop of Louisiana in 1997. Before the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, the diocese had 20,000 members in 54 congregations.

Jenkins became an Episcopalian as a college student not long after his father died of cancer. He had been attending a Baptist church with his grandparents, but was impressed by the Rev. Paul Bigger, the Episcopal priest who gave his father the last rites.

"He made much more sense to me and was much more interested in me as a human being. He took me under his wing," Jenkins says. "I experienced through this priest, and later through Iveson B. Noland [Bishop of Louisiana from 1969 to 1975], unconditional love. The Episcopal Church found me, and I found a friend for life."

He has served as a campus minister, and as rector of parishes in Arlington, Texas and Baton Rouge.

Jenkins says he believes his diocese's post-Katrina mission includes confronting racism, helping people become homeowners, providing health care, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and sheltering the homeless.

"I also look for the moment when people ask, 'Why are you doing this?'" Jenkins says. "In that moment, I can talk about what Christ means in my life."

Jenkins did not consent to the consecration of the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire. However, he has been one of Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold's more visible conservative allies.

"He has the ability to hold people with opposing views in tension with one another, in community with one another," says the Rev. Mark Holland, rector of St. James Church in Baton Rouge and chairman of the diocese's Commission on Ministry.

Jenkins says "the most pressing challenge" facing the Episcopal Church is the "transformation from maintenance to mission. The only way this church will ever diversify is by growing." But he also stresses the importance of "reconciliation in our church and in the Anglican Communion.
"We want to be Episcopalians, and we want to be Anglicans. We definitely don't want the two to become mutually exclusive."

Douglas LeBlanc of Episcopal Life contributed to this report.

Francisco Duque, 55, became Bishop of Columbia in 2001. The diocese has 20,000 members in 25 parishes.

Duque comes from a Roman Catholic family, and several of his sisters are nuns. He began exploring the Episcopal faith in high school, and continued to attend an Episcopal church after he became a law and began teaching law.

Duque said that the church must take on the struggle of those on the margins of society - "their problems, their difficulties, their anguish. The people of God need accompaniment, solidarity. They need the church to prophetically defend their rights in a way that is concrete. It is the mission of the church to announce the good news of Jesus and to denounce everything that subverts his dream of fraternity, solidarity and justice."

The Rev. Olga Bohorquez, dean of the cathedral in Bogota, said Duque has promoted reconciliation in Columbia's war torn society, has brought order to diocesan finances, and established stronger ecumenical and interfaith relationships.

Duque voted not to confirm the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire. "He has been inviting people to attend workshops on human sexuality led by university professors in order to facilitate understanding," said Catalina Cuellar, a lay woman who serves on the board of governors of Episcopal Life. "Many people in the diocese would see him as a reconciler and think that he might be able to play a similar role in the national church."

If he became presiding bishop, Duque said, his priorities would be promoting unity, developing greater fluency in English, and energizing the church's youth ministry.

Young people "are anxious to experience a Jesus who is closer, more human, more sensitive to the realities they face in their young lives," he said. "This influx of young people, and others, demonstrates that, in actuality, it is not our edifices, not our material goods that attracts people to us, it is our effort to keep alive our evangelical zeal … our concern to show the human face of God."
Of equal importance, he said, is "prophetic action - the church must announce the reign of God and denounce all that would block it."

Edmond Desueza of Episcopal Life contributed to this report.

Edwin "Ted" Gulick Jr., 57, became Bishop of Kentucky in 1994. The diocese has some 11,000 members in 38 congregations.

A cradle Episcopalian, he played the organ in his parish church in Virginia, attended the diocese's summer camp, and worked there as a counselor. Gulick said he knew he wanted to be a priest by about age 17. Before his election as bishop, he spent 11 years as a rector in Newport News, Va.

Were he elected presiding bishop, Gulick says, he would want to direct the church's gaze toward "best practices" in youth ministry and college and campus ministry as well as urban ministry, rural ministry, evangelism and "Jubilee Centers transforming lives and communities."

"That's what I think the church is about."

Gulick voted to support the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson's consecration as the church's first openly gay bishop but notes he's "more cautious" than many others about developing rites to bless same-sex relationships.

"To develop these rites before there is sufficient consensus not only in our church but in the wider Christian family that this is an appropriate thing to do could, at this point, cause more harm than good," he says. "I think we're in the season that we need to maintain the sort of unofficial wise pastoral response rather than to try to enshrine it perhaps prematurely in liturgical text."

Members of his diocese say Gulick has an "open door" policy.

"He makes himself available to people to know. He's not hidden away, and that openness and genuineness and authenticity is remarkable to watch," says the Rev. Libby Wade, who went through the ordination process with Gulick and is former vice president of the diocesan Trustees in Council.

"I think our church is designed so that our presiding bishop is not so much our authority but perhaps a person who helps inform the church's vision," Gulick says. "I don't think necessarily that he or she gives the church vision. I told the search committee, in some ways I don't consider myself a visionary person. My ministry has been about the prayer: `Give us today the bread for today.' If any vision comes, it's through the sort of daily obedience of trying to be faithful in the moment."

Sharon Sheridan of Episcopal Life contributed to this report.

Henry Parsley, 57, became Bishop of Alabama in 1996. The diocese includes 34,000 members in 91 churches.

Parsley's father was an Episcopal priest and a campus minister at Vanderbilt University during his son's formative years. Before his election as bishop, Parsley spent 10 years as rector of Christ Church in Charlotte, N.C. He has chaired the wider church's Standing Commission on Stewardship and Development and the House of Bishops' Theology Committee.

"I love the Anglican tradition," said Parsley. "It incorporates a deep rootedness in Scripture and the catholic faith, but also a generosity of spirit in heart and comprehensiveness and balance of theological thought. I value the great insights of the evangelical, catholic and liberal tradition that Anglicanism weaves together so wonderfully."

Parsley opposed the confirmation of the Rev. Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire. "I felt that we had not reached theological clarity and consensus on issues of same-sex relationships and that we needed as a church more study, prayer and listening and broader Anglican consultation before I could take such a decision," he said.

"He reminds us what is important," the Rev. David Meginniss of Tuscaloosa, chair of the diocesan Standing Committee. "After General Convention, he had a series of meetings throughout the diocese, then visited different churches. He tried to make it clear that he was a bishop for everybody in the diocese, which is a tricky thing to be."

Parsley said the next presiding bishop "is called to lead us from a season of conflict to a new season of mission, where we recognize that some of the tough issues that we've been struggling with around sexuality will take years to understand and resolve -- and we need to move beyond our focus on them and focus on the larger issues of mission and evangelism," he said.

"We need to renew our … commitment to church growth and young adult ministry, [to] greater diversity and [to] communicate compellingly the message of the Episcopal Church in our society. And I think we need to remember that, in the increasingly secularized world, that mission starts on our doorsteps and extends throughout the world as we seek to serve persons in great need in the Two-Thirds World."

Episcopal Life and Episcopal News Service contributed to this report.

Katherine Jefferts Schori, 51, became Bishop of Nevada in 2001. The diocese has 6,000 members in 35 congregations. She is the first woman to be nominated for presiding bishop.

Schori, who has taught both religious studies and oceanography at Oregon State University, has a Ph. D. in oceanography and a doctorate in divinity. She is also an instrument-rated pilot. Before her election as bishop, she served as assistant rector and priest-in-charge at two churches in Oregon.

Because her diocese has only about half a dozen seminary-trained priests, Jeffers Schori has emphasized "community ministry" which, she said in a speech last year, "assumes that each baptized person is a leader … working toward the transformation of a part of this world into something more like the kingdom of God … It becomes challenging when we realize that mutual accountability is expected, that each of us owes the community some accounting for the gifts we have been given and how they are being used."

Schori is straightforward when asked about the controversy over sexuality issues -- ordination and same-sex blessings. "My sense is that gay and lesbian people are created in the image of God, and we need to recognize that and make place for everyone to share their gifts in whatever way the church and God are calling them to use those gifts. I don't think that one's sexual orientation is a bar to ordination."

Bill Ryan, senior warden of Trinity Church in Reno said Schori was a consensus builder. "She has no favorites," he added." Everybody is equal in her eyes, and everybody is important."

"She's got a backbone of steel," says Jill Beasley, president of the diocese's standing committee. "She's probably the smartest person I know."

"I have a passion for mission, for the ways we can help to create a world that looks more like God's dream - a world where the hungry are fed, the ill are healed, the naked clothed, the homeless housed, all have meaningful work, and no one goes to war any more," Schori said.

"The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion are going to survive if we manage to work together at healing the world."

Nan Cobbey of Episcopal Life contributed to this report.

Stacy F. Sauls, 50, became Bishop of Lexington (Ky.) in 1950. The diocese includes 8,696 members in 36 congregations.

"I wasn't born an Episcopalian, but I was born to be one," said Sauls, who was raised in the Methodist Church, but said he was "looking for a church that would nurture [a] sense of mystery" during a time of intense loneliness that grew out of his parents' divorce. At age 15, he said, "It was the first time in my life when I was conscious of having a personal relationship with Jesus."

A former lawyer, he spent 10 years as rector of two Georgia parishes before his election as bishop.
"My whole ministry has been about creating opportunities for people I am serving pastorally to have their lives transformed by being in relationships of mutuality with people who are poor," said Sauls.

"Stacy has really focused the eyes of this diocese on mission," said the Rev. Dana Hardwick, chair of the diocese's Commission on Ministry. "That has been his strongest desire, and he's done incredible work." Sauls launched a Reading Camp for children and introduced Mission Corps, a yearlong opportunity for college graduates to explore ministry and vocation.

Sauls voted to confirm the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire As a member of the Episcopal Church Executive Council, he argued successfully that the Episcopal Church should accede to a request by the Primates of the Anglican Communion, and send its delegates to the June 2005 meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council as observers, rather than as voting members. He has also argued successfully for maintaining financial support of the council's work.

"I think it is very important to send the signal that we intend to be full partners," he said. "At the same time, I don't think we can be somebody different than who we are. That's actually not in anybody's interest."

Sauls said he envisions "a moment of unparalleled opportunity for systemic change" in the Episcopal Church. If elected, he would work toward a General Convention in 2009, "that is focused on how we give ourselves away and that never asks what is in the interests of our survival."

Herb Gunn of Episcopal Life contributed to this report.

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