Episcopal Church Selects Woman Leader
Episcopal Church Selects Woman Leader
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/18/04
Episcopal Church Selects Woman Leader#0
Posted: 6/19/06 at 12:41pm
Katherine Jefferts Schori, bishop of Nevada, was elected Sunday as the first female presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, the U.S. arm of the Anglican Communion. It is the latest groundbreaking move by the American denomination.
Congratulations to Bishop Schori!
I believe this strong and capable leader will build important bridges and reach out to diverse communities. I embrace this historic decision!
re: Episcopal Church Selects Woman Leader#1
Posted: 6/19/06 at 12:44pm
I do, too, although I already read an dlistened to rumblings because she dared to support the election of the openly gay bishop. I heard one of her acceptance addresses, though, and she sounds wonderful. She has a distinct voice of acceptance and tolerance and one can pray she appeals to the less tolerant parts of the church to bring them together.
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/21/04
re: Episcopal Church Selects Woman Leader#2
Posted: 6/19/06 at 12:45pmSaw this in the NYTimes this morning and gave a mental standing ovation for this choice!
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/18/04
re: Episcopal Church Selects Woman Leader#3
Posted: 6/19/06 at 12:48pm
She has a track-record of succeeding in male dominated fields. She has extraordinary skills in helping others to embrace that which they initially reject.
I believe she is going to be an important leader for many of us.
As a 'cradle Episcopalian', I am very, very proud of this decision.
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/21/04
re: Episcopal Church Selects Woman Leader#4
Posted: 6/19/06 at 1:24pm
Linking the NYTimes article to the thread...
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/19/us/19bishop.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
re: Episcopal Church Selects Woman Leader#5
Posted: 6/19/06 at 1:31pm
I'm about to be very stupid here.
What do you mean by "cradle Episcopalian"...born and raised?
Good for her, though. I noted they mention the "meteoric" time frame of selecting a female presiding bishop given they've only been allowed for about 30 years.
re: Episcopal Church Selects Woman Leader#6
Posted: 6/19/06 at 1:33pmAs a Jewish woman whose Rabbi is a woman, I applaud this. Clergy should be appointed by qualifications rather than sex.
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/21/04
re: Episcopal Church Selects Woman Leader#7
Posted: 6/19/06 at 1:34pm
bway: Yup! That's the definition!
Yenta: Amen!
Spelling edit
Updated On: 6/19/06 at 01:34 PM
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/18/04
re: Episcopal Church Selects Woman Leader#8
Posted: 6/19/06 at 1:37pm
Yes. Born and raised.
Meteoric rise for her, as well. She was ordained a mere 12 years ago.
I remember petitioning the church to be allowed to serve as an Acolyte when I was 12, and had just been Confirmed. At the time, women were not being ordained and a girl serving at the Altar was unheard of. I received permission from the Bishop, and along with my best friend, served as the first girl Acolyte in the Episcopal church in Connecticut...
Important steps... leading to other, more far-reaching steps. And bridges being built and crossed.
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/21/04
re: Episcopal Church Selects Woman Leader#10
Posted: 6/19/06 at 1:43pm
As a Jewish man whose rabbi is a lesbian (who frequently cites Broadway musicals in her sermons), I say this is a wonder of wonders and a miracle of miracles.
From the Times article: "Alienation is often a function of not knowing another human being," she said at a news conference after her election. "I have good relations with almost all the other bishops, those who agree and those who don't agree with me. I will bend over backwards to build good relations with those who don't agree with me."
We need more leaders like Bishop Schori, not only in religion but also in politics, not only here but all over the world.
And let's hear for our own NYadgal--pioneering female Acolyte!
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/2/05
re: Episcopal Church Selects Woman Leader#11
Posted: 6/19/06 at 2:08pm
Brava, Acolyte Addy!
And thanks, once again, to the Episcopals for going where others are afraid to.
re: Episcopal Church Selects Woman Leader#12
Posted: 6/19/06 at 2:22pm
she just spoke on cnn. she seems like quite an amazing person.
she gives me hope for religion. may the religious left rise to vanquish the ills of the religious right. and any religion or church that would use gender against a person is not the religion or church for me.
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/10/03
re: Episcopal Church Selects Woman Leader#13
Posted: 6/19/06 at 2:28pm
I watched the same interview. When asked if homosexuality is a sin, she didn't hesitate at all before answering "No". And when pressed further, she explained why quite eloquently.
Brava!
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/18/04
re: Episcopal Church Selects Woman Leader#14
Posted: 6/19/06 at 2:30pm
She is an extraordinary person. A bit more info...
Jefferts Schori said, in a pre-Convention interview, the priorities for the next Presiding Bishop include bridge-building and boundary-crossing as well as "moving our sanctuaries into the streets to encounter and transform the bad news of this world." She added that implementing the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of embracing and celebrating diversity, eradicating poverty and hunger, and creating an environmentally sustainable world are also priorities.
As the 26th Presiding Bishop, she will also face such challenges as boosting declining membership and reconciling the church nationally and globally over issues of human sexuality and mission.
She is a woman of depth, a woman of inclusion, a woman of fairness, a woman of prayer, a woman who knows what it is to gather God's people together.
"Around the Communion this is statement that we in fact can have more women in those positions and that will be true for women in Asia, in Africa, Latin American, and all around the world."
Jefferts Schori, who voted in 2003 to consent to the consecration of New Hampshire's Bishop Gene Robinson, has said she brings "different life experience" to the top job of the church, and also expressed a desire "to embrace and celebrate all the diverse cultures, languages, and origins of the many parts of the Episcopal Church—Haiti, Taiwan, Province IX, the churches in Europe, Virgin Islands, as well as the many cultures within the U.S.—First Nations, African-American, Spanish-speaking, Asian, and all Anglo varieties. None is more important than another."
She is the author of "When Conflict and Hope Abound," in "Vestry Papers" (March-April 2005); "Building Bridges/Widening Circles" in "Preaching Through Holy Days and Holidays: Sermons that Work XI," (Roger Alling and David J. Schlafer, eds., Morehouse, 2003); "Multicultural Issues in Preaching" in "Preaching Through the Year of Matthew: Sermons That Work X," (Roger Alling and David J. Schlafer, eds. Morehouse 2001).
I feel such hope for our future!
re: Episcopal Church Selects Woman Leader#15
Posted: 6/19/06 at 4:23pm
Here are her exact words, iflit.
===
New US church leader says homosexuality no sin
Mon Jun 19, 2006 3:33 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Newly elected leader of the U.S. Episcopal Church Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said on Monday she believed homosexuality was no sin and homosexuals were created by God to love people of the same gender.
Jefferts Schori, bishop of the Diocese of Nevada, was elected on Sunday as the first woman leader of the 2.3 million-member Episcopal Church. the U.S. branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion. She will formally take office later this year.
Interviewed on CNN, Jefferts Schori was asked if it was a sin to be homosexual.
"I don't believe so. I believe that God creates us with different gifts. Each one of us comes into this world with a different collection of things that challenge us and things that give us joy and allow us to bless the world around us," she said.
"Some people come into this world with affections ordered toward other people of the same gender and some people come into this world with affections directed at people of the other gender."
Jefferts Schori's election seemed certain to exacerbate splits within a Episcopal Church that is already deeply divided over homosexuality with several dioceses and parishes threatening to break away.
It could also widen divisions with other Anglican communities, including the Church of England, which do not allow women bishops.
In the worldwide Anglican church women are bishops only in Canada, the United States and New Zealand. The Robinson issue has been particularly criticized in Africa where the church has a growing membership and where homosexuality is often taboo.
Jefferts Schori, who was raised a Roman Catholic and graduated in marine biology with a doctorate specialization in squids and oysters, supported the consecration of Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the first openly gay bishop in more than 450 years of Anglican history.
The 52-year-old bishop is married to Richard Schori, a retired theoretical mathematician. They have one daughter, Katharine Johanna, 24, a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force and a pilot like her mother.
Asked how she reconciled her position on homosexuality with specific passages in the Bible declaring sexual relations between men an abomination, Jefferts Schori said the Bible was written in a very different historical context by people asking different questions.
"The Bible has a great deal to teach us about how to live as human beings. The Bible does not have so much to teach us about what sorts of food to eat, what sorts of clothes to wear -- there are rules in the Bible about those that we don't observe today," she said.
"The Bible tells us about how to treat other human beings, and that's certainly the great message of Jesus -- to include the unincluded."
New US church leader says homosexuality no sin
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/18/04
re: Episcopal Church Selects Woman Leader#16
Posted: 6/19/06 at 5:07pm
New Episcopal leader brings 'open heart'
The first woman in Anglican history to head a national church has pushed the envelope all her life.
Katharine Jefferts Schori, 52, is an instrument-rated pilot, rock climber and biologist who was an oceanographer with the National Marine Fisheries Service in Seattle before her church career.
But her supporters for the post of 26th national presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church USA, such as the Rev. Ian Douglas of the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., say it's her ability "to listen with an open heart and open mind" that makes her the best choice for a fractured church.
Her selection brought cheers from 1,000 clergy and lay leaders and crowds of visitors at the governing conference's House of Deputies. Her husband, Richard, and daughter Katherine Johanna, 24, an Air Force 2nd lieutenant, also were on hand.
A tall woman with a shy smile, Jefferts Schori arrived Sunday afternoon to a tumultuous welcome and said, in English and Spanish, that she was "awed and honored."
The Rev. Susan Russell, head of the Episcopal gay and lesbian organization Integrity, said she is thrilled with the selection. Jefferts Schori supported allowing priests to bless same-sex unions in the diocese of Nevada and in 2003 voted to affirm the choice of the church's first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.
The election may be divisive in the 77 million-member worldwide Anglican Communion, where only three — the USA, New Zealand and Canada — of 38 national and regional churches, known as provinces, accept women as bishops.
Asked about that, Jefferts Schori said that "face to face, human beings build relationships." She recalled that 30 years ago, "I was the chief scientist on an oceanographic cruise, and the captain would not talk to me because I'm a woman. He got over it in about 15 minutes."
Jefferts Schori told a magazine, The Witness, that what she values most in the Episcopal Church is "its historic ability to live with diversity and to celebrate that diversity. ... Some see that as a mighty sin, but I see it as one of the gifts of the creator. To be created in the image of God doesn't mean just one thing."
She has a biology degree from California's Stanford University and says homosexuality is "a given characteristic, not chosen."
The former dean of the Good Samaritan School of Theology in Corvallis, Ore., Jefferts Schori was ordained deacon and priest in 1994. She became bishop of the 6,000-member Nevada diocese in 2001. One of the 35 congregations in the diocese refused to accept the sacraments from her.
I believe she will advocate a broad range of issues which will enrich the lives of many groups of people.
re: Episcopal Church Selects Woman Leader#17
Posted: 6/19/06 at 5:14pm
Frankly, she sounds too good to be true.
She's one of those people whom I know nothing about but now, having read some of this, I'd like to invite her to dinner.
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/18/04
re: Episcopal Church Selects Woman Leader#18
Posted: 6/19/06 at 5:21pm
Well, she has an uphill battle.
She is going to lead the church through discussion and decisions on some contentious issues.
But I believe she has the skills and the heart to prevail.
She has my wholehearted support... and I have been in contact with members of my church, as well as the Rector of my parish, and everyone is motivated to throw a great deal of energy behind her in these decisions.
re: Episcopal Church Selects Woman Leader#19
Posted: 6/19/06 at 5:27pm
Well, of course she has an uphill battle! She has to lead a large group of a major Christian church (and I'm guessing that the American Episcopal church body is one of the biggest for this particular denomination) through a world that's VERY much about contentiousness and staking claims to certain moral absolutes.
But here's what I think: given that she was elected by this body, she clearly already has majority support from the decision-makers. That is going to go a LONG way and I hope she persistently pursues this kind of open and inclusive agenda. We've noted throughout history that, when people fear something and close off from it, it takes a very special and open person to slowly show them the way. With time, those fearful people come to realize they held ungrounded opinions.
Would that her election signaled things to come from other denominations in the U.S.
re: Episcopal Church Selects Woman Leader#20
Posted: 6/19/06 at 6:24pmThat's excellent! My priest made an announcement about the election being held soon, and I was wondering what had happened.
Bob Martin Online
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/21/04
re: Episcopal Church Selects Woman Leader#21
Posted: 6/19/06 at 6:40pmHope is something we could use a little more of in this world. Here's to Bishop Schori for igniting that spark of hope for understanding and good works!
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/18/04
re: Episcopal Church Selects Woman Leader#22
Posted: 6/20/06 at 4:42pm...bumping this for a friend to read.
re: Episcopal Church Selects Woman Leader#23
Posted: 6/20/06 at 5:08pm
I'll bump it up a little higher because everytime I read something about/written by Schori, it's very uplifting.
Educate me, Episcopal Addy (good new name!): I would assume you'd address a Bishop as Bishop so-and-so...does she have an addressable title beyond just Bishop Schori?
I'm amazed at my own ignorance of the Episcopal church given how many members it has in my home state.
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/21/04
re: Episcopal Church Selects Woman Leader#24
Posted: 6/20/06 at 5:14pm
November 6 is consecration?
A date to mark down in history...
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