Into the breach
Katharine Jefferts Schori is a feminist, pro-gay liberal — and now the most senior woman in the Anglican communion. So will her appointment split the church?
Interview by Stephen Bates Photograph by Paul Vernon
The Guardian
24 Jun 2006
When Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, heard the news that the US Episcopal church had elected a new presiding bishop as its primate last Sunday night, he must have thought all his nightmares had come at once. The new bishop was radical, feminist and gay-friendly. Most problematic of all, she was a woman.
Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, who is arguably now the highest-ranking woman in Episcopal history, pauses to consider the telephone call that passed between them the next day. “He was ... a bit anxious,” she says.
As well he might be. Jefferts Schori’s unexpected election to be the 26th presiding bishop of the Episcopal church — part of the Anglican communion, of which Williams is nominal head — was an indication that the Americans were not going to roll over and allow conservative forces elsewhere to dictate to them.
Over the past three years, the Episcopal church has proved a considerable headache for Williams — coming close to splitting the 77 million-strong worldwide communion by its endorsement, at its last general convention, of the election of the openly gay bishop Gene Robinson in 2003. Note “elected”, by parishioners, not appointed by the prime minister on behalf of the Queen, as bishops are in England.
That liberal, democratic tradition comes close to explaining why presiding bishop-elect Jefferts Schori is about to lead the Episcopal church, whereas the Church of England is still dithering over whether women can become bishops in the first place. (And had she remained in the denomination of her birth, Roman Catholicism, she would never have been able to be ordained a priest at all.)
Last Sunday, the 188 US bishops attending the Episcopalians’ general convention retreated to a local church to vote by ballot for one of seven candidates to be their next leader: Jefferts Schori and, it must be said, six rather uninspiring male bishops. No one, even among their number, thought she would win, but she led on every ballot, momentum built up, and by the fifth round she had her majority.
“It was wonderful,” said Bishop Robinson. “A number of us were always going to vote for her and then we saw more and more people joining. Even our Latin American member bishops came over.”
Jefferts Schori herself is a model of self-possession. Asked how she felt, she gives a one-word answer: “Awe.” She arrived at the convention 10 days ago as the relatively obscure bishop of Nevada, a tiny diocese of 6,000 members in a huge, sparsely-populated state (as a qualified pilot, she flies between parishes). Yet she leaves ready to take charge in November of a national church teetering on the brink of an historic schism from the rest of the Anglican communion.
The conservatives are desperate to find something against her — other than that she’s a woman, of course. They were jubilant this week when she referred in a convention sermon to “Mother Jesus”, exclaiming that she was preaching heresy.
Jefferts Schori looks puzzled: “It was very deliberate and conscious. I was wrestling with the image of blood on the cross, the image of labour. It’s medieval imagery actually, Julian of Norwich. It seemed appropriate to the text and the hard work we are trying to do in this place.”
Her intensity and seriousness may make many quail: “I think it is the Evil One who is at work here, distracting us from our central focus, which ought to be on feeding the hungry, relieving the needs of the poor, healing the sick. This obsession is keeping us from doing that. To focus on issues of sexuality when people are dying is a distraction from our mission.”
Her own record on those issues is that she voted to endorse Robinson and, when asked about blessings services for same-sex couples in Las Vegas, has said she supports the idea of gay partnerships: “I said that a parish wishing to do so would have to get the congregation to agree, to show that it was not an isolated event, divorced from the rest of its activities. The couple would also have to receive counselling, like anyone getting married.
“So far only two congregations have done the work, and I believe there have been two blessings in the past three years.”
But that is quite sufficient to damn her in the eyes of church conservatives, most notably Peter Akinola, the Archbishop of Nigeria, who has been.... read more...
The Guardian
24 Jun 2006
When Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, heard the news that the US Episcopal church had elected a new presiding bishop as its primate last Sunday night, he must have thought all his nightmares had come at once. The new bishop was radical, feminist and gay-friendly. Most problematic of all, she was a woman.
Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, who is arguably now the highest-ranking woman in Episcopal history, pauses to consider the telephone call that passed between them the next day. “He was ... a bit anxious,” she says.
As well he might be. Jefferts Schori’s unexpected election to be the 26th presiding bishop of the Episcopal church — part of the Anglican communion, of which Williams is nominal head — was an indication that the Americans were not going to roll over and allow conservative forces elsewhere to dictate to them.
Over the past three years, the Episcopal church has proved a considerable headache for Williams — coming close to splitting the 77 million-strong worldwide communion by its endorsement, at its last general convention, of the election of the openly gay bishop Gene Robinson in 2003. Note “elected”, by parishioners, not appointed by the prime minister on behalf of the Queen, as bishops are in England.
That liberal, democratic tradition comes close to explaining why presiding bishop-elect Jefferts Schori is about to lead the Episcopal church, whereas the Church of England is still dithering over whether women can become bishops in the first place. (And had she remained in the denomination of her birth, Roman Catholicism, she would never have been able to be ordained a priest at all.)
Last Sunday, the 188 US bishops attending the Episcopalians’ general convention retreated to a local church to vote by ballot for one of seven candidates to be their next leader: Jefferts Schori and, it must be said, six rather uninspiring male bishops. No one, even among their number, thought she would win, but she led on every ballot, momentum built up, and by the fifth round she had her majority.
“It was wonderful,” said Bishop Robinson. “A number of us were always going to vote for her and then we saw more and more people joining. Even our Latin American member bishops came over.”
Jefferts Schori herself is a model of self-possession. Asked how she felt, she gives a one-word answer: “Awe.” She arrived at the convention 10 days ago as the relatively obscure bishop of Nevada, a tiny diocese of 6,000 members in a huge, sparsely-populated state (as a qualified pilot, she flies between parishes). Yet she leaves ready to take charge in November of a national church teetering on the brink of an historic schism from the rest of the Anglican communion.
The conservatives are desperate to find something against her — other than that she’s a woman, of course. They were jubilant this week when she referred in a convention sermon to “Mother Jesus”, exclaiming that she was preaching heresy.
Jefferts Schori looks puzzled: “It was very deliberate and conscious. I was wrestling with the image of blood on the cross, the image of labour. It’s medieval imagery actually, Julian of Norwich. It seemed appropriate to the text and the hard work we are trying to do in this place.”
Her intensity and seriousness may make many quail: “I think it is the Evil One who is at work here, distracting us from our central focus, which ought to be on feeding the hungry, relieving the needs of the poor, healing the sick. This obsession is keeping us from doing that. To focus on issues of sexuality when people are dying is a distraction from our mission.”
Her own record on those issues is that she voted to endorse Robinson and, when asked about blessings services for same-sex couples in Las Vegas, has said she supports the idea of gay partnerships: “I said that a parish wishing to do so would have to get the congregation to agree, to show that it was not an isolated event, divorced from the rest of its activities. The couple would also have to receive counselling, like anyone getting married.
“So far only two congregations have done the work, and I believe there have been two blessings in the past three years.”
But that is quite sufficient to damn her in the eyes of church conservatives, most notably Peter Akinola, the Archbishop of Nigeria, who has been.... read more...
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