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Los Angeles elections generate strong reactions

Episcopal News Service

	The Rev. Diane Bruce (top) and the Rev. Mary Glasspool

Los Angeles diocesan Bishop Jon Bruno’s Dec. 5 acknowledgment that the weekend elections of two women suffragan bishops could create “a bit of a wave” across the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion may have been an understatement.

Within days a flood of local, national and international support, praise, skepticism and criticism had poured in, as well as speculation about the impact on local and global church relations of the elections of the Rev. Canon Diane Bruce and, more specifically, the Rev. Canon Mary Glasspool, an openly gay and partnered woman.

Bruno addresses those concerns at the end of the two-day diocesan convention.

“The people of Los Angeles elected these women,” said Bruno. “The people of the Diocese of Los Angeles said ... we want at least one woman. Well, they got double their wish.”

A majority of the 680 clergy and lay delegates attending the two-day gathering on Dec. 4 elected Bruce on the third ballot from among a field of six candidates.

A well-known Los Angeles area priest, she had served for nine years as rector of St. Clements by-the-Sea Church in San Clemente, the southernmost tip of the six-county diocese.

She became the first woman bishop in the diocese’s 114-year history and the 16th woman elected bishop in the Episcopal Church.

A day later, Glasspool was elected after seven rounds of balloting, during which an admittedly “disconcerted” Bruno challenged the tense, almost somber gathering, “to look toward the future and have vision” and to “listen to the Holy Spirit.”

Under the canons of the Episcopal Church, a majority of bishops exercising jurisdiction and diocesan Standing Committees must consent to both women’s ordination as bishop within 120 days of receiving notice of the election.

Not all vanilla

“We’re not as vanilla as we look,” Bruno said. “We have a new student of Spanish,” he said referring to Glasspool. He is fluent in Spanish, as is Bruce, who also speaks Mandarin and Cantonese.

“What we’ve done is bring great skills of administration and excitement and advancement and lifting people up for who they are. This diocese has been only one thing today, blessed.”

Glasspool told reporters following her election that she felt the Holy Spirit empowered convention to go beyond “superficial characteristics and boxes in which we put people, to really look at individual people and assess the needs of the diocese and pair them with the gifts and skills that Diane and I each bring.

“In that sense, in all ways, we are moving to a point where we can look beneath the skin color and any single characteristic and really rejoice in the wholeness of every individual person.”

Swift reactions

Supporters and well-wishers praised her election, from Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, consecrated the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church in 2003, to Bishop Eugene Sutton of Maryland, where Glasspool has served as canon to the bishops for the past eight years.

Within hours of her election, though, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams issued a statement saying Glasspool’s election “raises very serious questions, not just for the Episcopal Church and its place in the Anglican Communion, but for the communion as a whole.”

He added, “The process of selection however is only part complete. The election has to be confirmed, or could be rejected, by diocesan bishops and diocesan standing committees. That decision will have very important implications.

“The bishops of the Communion have collectively acknowledged that a period of gracious restraint in respect of actions which are contrary to the mind of the Communion is necessary if our bonds of mutual affection are to hold.”

On Dec. 7 the Chicago Consultation praised Glasspool’s election and called on the Archbishop of Canterbury to reconsider his initial statement about it. The Chicago Consultation is a group of Episcopal and Anglican bishops, clergy and laity supporting full inclusion for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

The U.K.-based Inclusive Church network on Dec. 9 welcomed the elections of Bruce and Glasspool while disassociating itself from the response by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Giles Goddard, chair of Inclusive Church, in an open letter to Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and Bishop Jon Bruno of Los Angeles, offered the network’s congratulations for the elections and its regret for Williams’ comments.

‘Wonderful candidates’

Bruno told the reporters he “will work my fingers to the bones, dialing telephones to talk to people and let them know what wonderful candidates we have here,” should an attempt be made to stall Glasspool’s consecration.

Should Glasspool receive the necessary consents, she would not be the first openly gay female bishop in Christianity.

On Nov. 8 the (Lutheran) Church of Sweden ordained Eva Brunne, 55, as bishop of the Diocese of Stockholm.

Brunne is the first Church of Sweden bishop to live in a registered homosexual partnership, according to the Uppsala-headquartered church.

Bruce and Glasspool will succeed Bishop Suffragan Chester Talton and Bishop Assistant Sergio Carranza, who are retiring after 19 and seven years service, respectively, to the diocese.

The Diocese of Los Angeles has 70,000 members in 148 congregations and includes all of Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, and part of Riverside County.

The Rev. Pat McCaughan, the Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg and Matthew Davies contributed to this Episcopal News Service report.