"Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez" -- for Haiti!

Come spend part of your Valentines Day with the Diocese of L.A. Program Group on LGBT Ministry at our Mardi Gras-in-the-Cathedral party benefiting Haitian Earthquake Relief!

[click on image to enlarge]

Good cause. Great fun. "Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez"

RSVP to Vicki Mouradian

Update on consent process for bishops suffragan-elect

[The Diocese of Los Angeles - 12JAN2010] – The 120-day processes by which bishops and standing committees of the 110 dioceses of the Episcopal Church are asked to provide formal consent to the December 2009 elections of two bishops suffragan in the Diocese of Los Angeles opened on January 5 and January 8, officials have confirmed.

“This is now a period of reflection, prayer and discernment among the bishops and standing committees,” Diocesan Bishop J. Jon Bruno said of the consent process as it officially opened. “Our diocesan officers and bishops-elect will honor this process by postponing public comment, including media interviews, until after the required consents are received. We give thanks that the Holy Spirit is at work as the Church moves forward.”

The Presiding Bishop’s Office on January 5 sent letters to bishops with jurisdiction (primarily bishops diocesan) requesting consent to the election of the Rev. Canon Mary Douglas Glasspool, and on January 8 sent similar letters requesting consent to the election of the Rev. Canon Diane Jardine Bruce. These letters followed verification in the Presiding Bishop’s Office of reports including physical and psychological examinations.

On the same dates, the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Los Angeles sent letters to the Episcopal Church’s other 109 diocesan standing committees requesting consent to the elections of Bruce and Glasspool.

The Los Angeles diocesan standing committee will tabulate the responses it receives while the Presiding Bishop’s Office receives bishops’ responses and typically does not disclose related information until those results are complete and certified.

Canon III.11.4 (a) of the Episcopal Church requires that a majority of diocesan bishops and a majority of diocesan standing committees must consent to each episcopal election.

These separate actions must be completed within 120 days from the day after notice of the election was sent to designated recipients, and each bishop-elect must receive a majority (at least 50% plus 1) of consents from the diocesan bishops as well as a majority from the standing committees in order for ordination to proceed.

If a majority is not received from the bishops and/or the standing committees, the Presiding Bishop is required by Canon III.11.5 to declare the election null and void.

Meanwhile, the Presiding Bishop’s Office has confirmed that the 120-day consent processes will conclude on May 5 for Glasspool and on May 8 for Bruce. Their ordination to the episcopate is scheduled for May 15 at the Long Beach Arena, pending receipt of necessary consent

Prop 8 trial in the news

Listen here to KPFK radio's Sonali Kolhatkar interviewing the Courage Campaign's Rick Jacobs and All Saints Pasadena's Susan Russell about Perry v Schwarzenegger -- the landmark trial challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 8. The interview aired this morning here in Los Angeles.

Bishop-elect Glasspool began her ministry in Chestnut Hill

from The Chestnut Hill (PA) Local

by Clark Groome

When the Rev. Mary Douglas Glasspool was called to be assistant to the rector at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Chestnut Hill she was the first woman to serve on the staff of the local parish.

On Dec. 5 she was elected to be one of two bishops suffragan (an elected assistant bishop) in the Diocese of Los Angeles. While not the first female bishop (she will be the 17th), she is the first openly gay woman elected to the episcopate.

Arriving at St. Paul’s in 1981, the newly ordained deacon and recent seminary graduate began her ministry only a few years after the Episcopal Church officially allowed women to become priests.

Since then Glasspool has had a distinguished career that has put her at the center of many important and controversial changes in the Episcopal Church.

Going back to her early days at St. Paul’s, she said in an interview for that parish’s 2006 sesquicentennial history that there was some resistance to her being called to St. Paul’s.

The parish’s rector at the time, the Rev. James R. Moodey, “was very intentional about wanting to promote women’s ordination and do so in a way that kept in mind the totality of the church,” Glasspool said.

“My first day on the job, Jim gave me a list of people to go visit,” she said. “I didn’t know this but it was the five or six people who had been most verbal about their doubts about having a female priest.”

Apparently she won the day.

“I don’t remember that there was a lot of talk about [having a woman priest], said the Rev. James C. Ransom, who was the other assistant to the rector when Glasspool arrived. “St. Paul’s has always been supportive of the ordination of women.”

After serving St. Paul’s for three years, she was called to be the rector of St. Luke’s and St. Margaret’s Church in Boston. While there she was again at the center of one of the church’s defining moments.

In 1988 she placed the Rev. Barbara C. Harris’ name in nomination to be bishop suffragan of the Diocese of Massachusetts. After shepherding her candidacy, Glasspool watched as her old friend from Philadelphia was elected the first female bishop anywhere in the Anglican Communion.

After several more years in Boston, she became the rector of St. Margaret’s Church in Annapolis, Md., a position she held from 1992 to 2001. Since then she has been canon (assistant) to the bishops in the Diocese of Maryland.

Jim Ransom has the unique perspective of having worked with Glasspool both at the beginning of her ministry and, up until he retired two months ago, with her in Maryland. He described her as a priest “of deep faithfulness.”

Her father was priest and so, Ransom said, Glasspool grew up in the church.

“From an early age she embraced the Christian understanding of things as the way they should be,” he added. “She lived with the reality of God in her life from a very early time. God is at the center of everything she does and thinks and how she lives. That shows immediately when you’re with her.”

Her gifts propelled her to be nominated to become one of the two bishops suffragan elected by the Diocese of Los Angeles on Dec.5.

Once again, Mary Glasspool is at the center of a defining moment for the church. While the election of women to the episcopate has become a familiar and mostly accepted practice since Harris’ election in 1988 – the Episcopal Church’s presiding bishop and primate is a woman – Glasspool, 55, is only the second openly gay person to be elected a bishop in the church. Since 1988 she has been in a committed relationship with Becki Sander.

When V. Gene Robinson, a partnered gay man, was elected bishop of New Hampshire in 2003, many in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, of which the American church is one of 38 autonomous provinces, were not pleased. The issue of the role of gays in the church hierarchy was controversial, with some provinces supportive, others uncertain and several vehemently opposed.

Unlike many Anglican provinces where bishops are appointed, the members of an American diocese elect their bishops, an act that must receive the consent from a majority of the standing committees and bishops with jurisdiction in the church’s 110 dioceses.

Robinson received the necessary consents. The controversy that followed led to an intentional moratorium on the election of openly gay priests to the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops. That moratorium was lifted at the church’s 2009 General Convention.

Glasspool’s candidacy arose on the heels of that triennial convention’s decision that, basically, leaves the decision up to individual dioceses while recommending that all tread softly and only go in that direction when they are sure that the person, regardless of his or her sexuality, is the most qualified for the job.

Her election has, not unexpectedly, created some controversy, although everyone contacted for this article believes that she will receive the consents she needs.

The Rev. Glen M. Matis, president of the Diocese of Pennsylvania’s standing committee, believes that Glasspool’s election will be ratified and will have the support of the local diocese.

The Diocese of Pennsylvania’s assisting bishop, Rt. Rev. Rodney R. Michel can’t vote because he’s not the diocese’s elected leader. In a recent conversation Michel said, “If I had a vote I would vote for Mary enthusiastically.” He, too, believes that Glasspool will garner the support necessary.

Barbara Harris, whose election was also the subject of controversy, agrees that she will be confirmed.

“She is an excellent priest,” Harris said in a recent telephone interview. “She has a good sense of pastoral care, which is important [to a bishop]. She has a view of a diocese beyond the confines of a parish ministry having served for these past eight years as canon to the bishops of Maryland.

“I think she has had a well-rounded ministry that has given her some understanding of the role of a bishop suffragan.”

Speaking after her election Glasspool said she was “honored by the trust that the people voting in that convention showed in me.”

“My feeling,” she continued, “is that the Episcopal Church is moving ahead. This is a progression. It’s not an earthquake or anything.

“I and my brothers and sisters who may be more conservative than I, and my brothers and sisters who may be more liberal than I, as long as we can come together at Christ’s table to celebrate and receive the Eucharist, we’re OK. Beyond that, we need to work it out.”

St. Paul’s current rector, the Rev. E. Clifford Cutler, has known the bishop-elect since they served parishes in Pennsylvania and moved almost simultaneously to Massachusetts: Glasspool in late 1984 and Cutler in early 1985.

“Mary has a keen sense of justice,” Cutler said. “She’s a very fine priest.”

If confirmed, she will be the fourth member of the clergy to serve St. Paul’s who went on to become a bishop. The other three are: the Rt. Rev. William Hobart Hare, the parish’s second rector (1860-1863) and, from 1873-1909, bishop to the Native Americans in what was then called the Diocese of Niobrara and is now South Dakota; the Rt. Rev. Malcolm Endicott Peabody, St. Paul’s rector from 1925 to 1938, then bishop of Central New York from 1938 until 1960; and The Rt. Rev. James R. Moodey, the man who brought Mary Glasspool to St. Paul’s. Moodey was St. Paul’s rector from 1976 to 1983 and bishop of Ohio from 1983 until 1993.

“I think Mary will get the consents,” Cutler said. “This is an issue in our communion that we don’t have agreement on and yet we can disagree and be members of the body of Christ. Churches have disagreed forever. I hope for a maturity that will allow the communion to still be together as we work through some of our different ways of interpreting scripture and our life together.”

Church law requires that the standing committees and bishops vote on her election within 120 days of being notified of it. That means that the results will be in no later than the end of March. If confirmed, she will be consecrated bishop in Los Angeles on May 15, 2010.

New L.A. Episcopal bishop's historic journey

Raised a Catholic, Diane Bruce felt she'd 'come home' when she attended an Episcopal service officiated by a woman. Now, 23 years later, she is the L.A. Diocese's first female assistant bishop.

By Duke Helfand -- [source link] -- December 27, 2009

The Rev. Canon Diane Jardine Bruce still remembers the moment 23 years ago when she fell in love with the Episcopal Church.

Raised as a devout Roman Catholic, Bruce happened to visit an Episcopal parish in New Mexico, where the mother of a friend was officiating.

Bruce was moved by the joy inside the sanctuary and delighted by the sight of the female priest, something prohibited by the Catholic Church. She found unexpected similarities between the two approaches, including the Eucharist.

"There was something about being in an Episcopal church that felt like I had come home," she said.

Two decades later, Bruce would make history by becoming the first woman elected suffragan, or assistant bishop, in the 114-year history of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles.

Bruce's ascent at the diocese's annual convention earlier this month was eclipsed to a large degree by controversy over the election at the same event of an openly gay priest, the Rev. Canon Mary D. Glasspool of Maryland, to a second assistant bishop's post.

But many in the Los Angeles diocese speak of Bruce, the longtime rector of St. Clement's by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in San Clemente, in reverential tones.

A banking executive for 17 years before she entered the priesthood, Bruce is widely credited with saving her San Clemente church from economic ruin. Her banking background has put her in high demand throughout the diocese, with top leaders and church rectors seeking her counsel.

Those who know Bruce, who is married with two adult children, also say she is spiritual, direct and self-effacing, a priest who knows how to minister to rich and poor alike. She is a cancer survivor who speaks three languages -- Spanish, Mandarin and Cantonese -- and understands the diocese's multicultural makeup, they say.

"If people looked at who Diane is, they would be absolutely amazed," said the Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno, the diocese's primary bishop.

Bruce says she feels no ill will about Glasspool's capturing so much of the spotlight. "It never occurred to me that any attention would be paid to me being the first woman [bishop] because it's been done before" in other dioceses, she said.

Bruce grew up in Pequannock Township, N.J., which, as she points out, is perhaps best-known as the birthplace of New York Yankees star Derek Jeter.

One of five children (she has a twin sister four minutes older), she attended Catholic school as a girl, including daily Mass that gave her "a rich sense of peace."

Bruce fell into banking at 24, when a friend of her father's suggested that she apply for a training program with San Francisco's Crocker Bank (later bought by Wells Fargo). She spent the next 17 years at Wells, managing various units, including those responsible for international banking operations and incentive compensation plans for commercial and corporate officers.

It wasn't until Bruce was 30 that she found her way to the Episcopal Church -- on that chance visit to the New Mexico parish with her college roommate.

A short time later, she attended another service by a female priest back home in suburban San Francisco. Afterward, she said, she heard a voice. "When are you going to stop running and say yes to me?" it asked.

She began taking classes and soon was received into the church.

She decided to pursue the ministry, ultimately being ordained to the priesthood in 1998.

When she arrived at St. Clements in San Clemente in 2000, she found a church that was $10,000 in the red and nearly unable to meet payroll.

Members had fled and pledges had dried up as two rectors left in the 1990s amid accusations of personal or sexual misconduct, according to longtime church members and diocese officials.

Bruce scrutinized contracts for such things as copy machines, and she looked for bargains on items as seemingly insignificant as bathroom soap.

She addressed the financial crunch at Sunday services, telling parishioners at one point that the church could hire a Sunday school director for the monthly interest it was paying on $30,000 in bank debt. Within a short time, the church had raised the money, according to Bruce and Audrey Daigle, who was the church's senior lay leader at the time and also served on the search committee that found Bruce.

"We saw in her a very dedicated, faithful person," Daigle said.

At the end of Bruce's first year, St. Clements was operating in the black, Daigle recalled. The church began to grow again, attracting some who had left and newcomers, including Spanish-speakers.

Jon and Karin Sherman, who had drifted from the church, were among those who found renewed commitment. "We have gone from distance to involved again," Jon Sherman said.

During her years as a priest in the diocese, Bruce has advised other churches on fundraising, and served on the diocese's investment trust board and as president of its standing committee of elected lay and clergy members that approves such things as property transactions and candidates for ordination to the priesthood.

The Rev. Canon Brad Karelius at the Episcopal Church of the Messiah in Santa Ana, where Bruce served as an intern and associate rector, recalled her ability to move comfortably among different groups.

"She's able to speak to very poor immigrants as well as very well-to-do matriarchs," said Karelius, who nominated Bruce last spring for the assistant bishop job. "She can talk to anybody."

Not long after Bruce was nominated, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She decided to continue her quest for the job -- six candidates were vying for the two slots -- even as she underwent chemotherapy, at one point introducing herself in a video to the diocese wearing a head scarf but noting that her doctor had given her a clean bill of health.

Bruce's hair was stubbly when she appeared at the December convention, but she betrayed no sign of fear over the bout of cancer.

"I've never felt alone," she said. "No matter what the struggle, I felt God was walking with me."

duke.helfand@latimes.com

COMMENTARY: Never say "never"

by Susan Russell

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.

I grew up in the Episcopal Church here in Los Angeles. I learned to sing these words to the Magnificat – one of the scriptures appointed for this Fourth Sunday of Advent – as a Junior Choir member in a church that wouldn’t let me be an acolyte because I was a girl. I met my first woman priest in the 1980’s – a decade after the “irregular” ordination of eleven women in Philadelphia in 1974 opened the way for women in the priesthood in the Episcopal Church. And I remember the great drama that unfolded over those ordinations here in the Diocese of Los Angeles – including the four congregations who tried to leave the diocese (and take their buildings with them!) in protest.

And on December 4th & 5th I watched with awe as this diocese – my Diocese of Los Angeles – elected not one but two women as Bishops Suffragan to help lead us in our work and witness into the 21st century. My spirit rejoiced – in God my Savior and in Los Angeles, my diocese.

And I will never say “never” again.

Faced with the challenge of electing two new bishops from an extraordinary field of six deeply faithful, diversely gifted priests – including our own incomparable Zelda Kennedy – I watched with such deep gratitude as the careful, prayerful work that went into the months long discernment process unfolded. And in the end, when the last ballot was counted and the last declarations signed by the delegates and Bishops-elect Diane Jardine Bruce and Mary Douglas Glasspool stood together at the podium and led us in Evening Prayer I knew that we who were privileged to be part of that electing convention were also privileged to be witnesses to history.

The bishops-elect took very different paths to that historic moment. One was raised in the Roman Catholic Church and found the Episcopal Church as a young mother. The other was raised in the Episcopal Church as the daughter of a priest who disapproved of the ordination of women. Both are extraordinarily qualified to serve in both the pastoral and prophetic roles we expect in our bishops and both will be tremendous additions to the House of Bishops – where they will be the 16th and 17th women to be seated in that house after their May 15th consecrations.

As we come to the end of this Advent season of preparation we will open our hearts and our minds once again to the amazing mystery of the Word made flesh and dwelling among us in the miracle of the Christmas story. We will rejoice once again in the scandal of the incarnation – of a God who loved us enough to become one of us in order to show us how to walk in love with one another. And this year, let us rejoice as well that we belong to a God whose capacity to draw us into ever-widening understandings of peace, joy, justice, compassion and incarnation didn’t end in Bethlehem with the birth of Jesus. Or in Philadelphia with the ordination of eleven women priests. Or in Riverside with the election of two bishops-suffragan.

Let our souls proclaim and our spirits rejoice in both the challenges and opportunities ahead – for us, for All Saints Church and for this Diocese of Los Angeles -- as we watch and wait to see what our “never say never” God will do next!

[from Saints Alive -- the weekly newsletter of All Saints Church, Pasadena]

On the radio

Click here to listen to the Monday, December 14, 2009 segment of KPFK 90.7's "IMRU" radio show focused on the Diocese of Los Angeles episcopal elections and the challenge to the Archbishop of Canterburyto speak out against the anti-homosexuality legislation pending in Uganda.