Bishop Sean Rowe of the Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania and the Diocese of Western New York has been named the following presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, succeeding Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, who concludes a nine-year term later this 12 months.
Rowe, 49, received the vast share of votes from the bishops on the church’s General Convention in Louisville, Kentucky, on Wednesday. He received 89 votes when 82 votes were needed, while the 4 other nominees received between nine and 24 votes each. After the House of Bishops accomplished their votes on the primary ballot, the House of Deputies confirmed the outcomes of the election, with the bang of a gavel, cheers and applause.
Rowe, who can be the twenty eighth and youngest ever elected presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, became bishop of the Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania in 2007 and has been bishop provisional of Western New York since 2019. A native of Sharon, Pennsylvania, he’s a graduate of Grove City College and of Virginia Theological Seminary. He also has a Ph.D. in organizational learning and leadership from Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania.
In a video posted on the General Convention website as nominees were considered, Rowe said the following presiding bishop have to be attentive to voices that may “breathe fresh air and recent light and life into our beloved church,” helping the church “hear the testimony of the ladies on the empty tomb” and “recognize Jesus on the road.”
The gathering of Episcopalians on the Kentucky International Convention Center in Louisville, Kentucky, has been attended by about 3,500 people, including 160 voting bishops and 829 deputies, clergy and lay representatives of greater than 100 dioceses, or regional districts, of the 1.4 million-member denomination.
In his first public remarks as presiding bishop-elect, Rowe compared the shifts swirling across the church — which he said is facing an “existential crisis” — to the changes he saw occur within the Rust Belt where he watched steel industries close as an elementary school student.
“God is looking us ever more deeply into the unknown,” he said. “If we’re honest with one another and ourselves, we all know that we cannot proceed to be the Episcopal Church in the identical way, regardless of where we live.”
As he made initial proposals about considering restructuring within the denomination to further support on-the-ground ministry, he suggested finding recent ways to talk to at least one one other as well.
“We must commit to making a beloved community by which we are able to disagree with one another without shaming or blaming or tearing one another apart,” he said, drawing applause. “And here’s an idea: Let’s use our anger at injustice as an alternative of turning it inward on one another.”
He also said that he would follow and expand on Curry’s commitments to evangelism, “creation care,” and racial reconciliation.
On the day before the election, the co-chairs of the committee that nominated a slate of 4 bishop nominees — a fifth, and the only woman, was added through a petition process — described what a survey accomplished by some 6,000 Episcopalians had said about their wishes for the following bishop.
“You’re in search of a powerful leader — and I’d add a powerful leader in adaptive considering to satisfy the changing church of our time,” said Bishop Mark Lattime of the Diocese of Alaska, who led the committee with Dr. Steve Nishibayashi, a lay leader and retired pediatrician from the Diocese of Los Angeles. “Also in search of someone who has a love of preaching and communicating the excellent news of Jesus Christ and his love. And in fact, an individual of strong faith.”
In mid-June the Episcopal Church announced that two of the five bishops being considered for the highest leadership position of the denomination were currently subjects of church discipline investigations and had previous complaints dismissed, as did a 3rd nominee. Rowe was not amongst those three.
Curry, whose term ends Oct. 31, was elected the primary Black bishop of the Episcopal Church in 2015. His term included preaching the sermon on the 2018 wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, being the topic of an internal clergy misconduct criticism for his response to abuse allegations of a former bishop, and enduring hospitalizations and medical treatment for a brain bleed, internal bleeding and heart conditions.
But he kicked off the weeklong meeting, which ends Friday, by declaring to Episcopal leaders that he was not nervous in regards to the way forward for their church.
“I’m here to let you know this Episcopal Church is stronger, more durable and has a future that God has decreed and that God has discovered,” he said in opening remarks at a June 22 joint gathering of the House of Deputies and House of Bishops before legislative meetings began the following day. “And I’m here to let you know, don’t you are worried about this church. Don’t you weep and do not you moan. Just roll up your sleeves and let’s get to work. That’s our future.”
But at a news conference on the Friday preceding the meeting, Curry acknowledged the challenges ahead for his successor.
“Somehow our next presiding bishop in our church going forward goes to take heed to what the Spirit is saying to the churches, and follow,” he said. “That’s difficult.”
Curry sat next to his soon-to-be successor in one other news conference after Rowe’s election was confirmed and said his leadership of two dioceses and the brand new ways they’ve learned to share resources have served as examples for the broader church and indicators of the denomination’s future.
“Whatever the brand new way is that God has in front of us, that is what I see in Bishop Sean Rowe,” Curry said. “The capability to assist us to see and sense and discern that future, and how you can put the mechanics in place, not simply to speak about it. But to truly do it.”
In a separate election, the president of the House of Deputies, Julia Ayala Harris of the Diocese of Oklahoma, was re-elected to her post. After defeating two other candidates, Alaya Harris, the primary Latina and the primary woman of color within the post, is about to start her second term when the convention concludes on Friday.
© Religion News Service
