Within the Episcopal Church, bishops suffragan are elected to assist the bishop of a diocese. The nominees, listed here with links to ministry and biographical information, are:
The Rev. Canon Diane M. Jardine Bruce, rector, St. Clement’s by-the-Sea Church in San Clemente, California;
The Rev. Canon Mary Douglas Glasspool, canon to the bishops in the Baltimore-based Diocese of Maryland;
The Rev. Zelda M. Kennedy, senior associate for pastoral care and spiritual growth, All Saints Church in Pasadena, California;
The Rev. John L. Kirkley, rector, St. John the Evangelist Church in San Francisco (Diocese of California);
The Rev. Silvestre E. Romero, rector, St Philip’s Church in San Jose, California (Diocese of El Camino Real); and
The Rev. Irineo Martir Vasquez, vicar, St. George’s Church in Hawthorne, California.
Read it all and follow through by looking at the biographical information.
The lack of Theology in the questions and the lack of Christ in the answers is staggering. And oh yeah, a few nominations that would pose a problem for the wider Anglican Communion. “…Damn the Moratoria! Full Speed Ahead!!!”
If one of them gets elected, I can already hear the spin doctors with a wink and a nod arguing, “The Moratorium is still in force, as it only applied to Diocesan bishops.”
No snark intended, but what does a diocese with ASA of about 20,000 need with three bishops? That’s smaller than any Catholic diocese I know of, and only the largest archdiocese have more than one or two bishops. It’s just a good sized evangelical mega-church; yes, they have large staffs, but so does LA when you include the priests, deacons, and lay staff persons. I suppose a fair number of Methodist Conferences are larger, and I never knew them to have multiple bishops. What do these people do with their time?
#3, a progressive is never idle. There is always plenty of other people’s business to poke noses into. H L Mencken’s definition of a puritan also applies to them as well.
Reading the resumes of these people, except for the obvious, at least Glasspool+ appears qualified. Kirkley+ certainly is not qualified and Kenndy+ appears unqualified as well. I didn’t have time to read the others.
Words Matter asks: No snark intended, but what does a diocese with ASA of about 20,000 need with three bishops?
If you are going to take such an approach … then why not ask the same question about the number of bishops in the Church of the Southern Cone? It reports a membership (not even ASA) of 22,000 … and yet has far more than three bishops.
Then there is the Anglican Church of North America reporting an ASA of 60,000+/- … approximately 3x that of the Diocese of Los Angeles. Why not ask why it needs more than 9 … or 3 x the number of bishops per 20,000 members attending on any given Sunday. ACNA has at least 30 bishops, if not more.
I did ask that question about the AMiA a few years ago. I’m not aware of what factors obtain in the Southern Cone. Of course, a missionary area can make good use of bishops, assuming they take the apostolic ministry of goig from place to place, starting churches. LA is hardly in a growth mode, and multiple bishops don’t seem to have done much to change that.
There are times geography or culture matter; the Episcopal Diocese of Texas encompasses 3 geographical and cultural regions: Houston and the Gulf coast, Austin and the Hill Country, and the East Texas woods, centered around Tyler. Each city has a resident bishop (or did last I checked). That makes sense, although you wonder if they might not just as well make 3 dioceses.
My point of reference was larger churches. Check out some Catholic dioceses:
http://catholic-hierarchy.org/diocese/qview1.html
Dallas has a million Catholics and one bishop
Fort Worth has half a million and one bishop
Houston, with a million, has an auxiliary, but the cardinal archbishop spends a certain amount of time in Rome, so he needs help.
Interestingly, Tyler has 55,000 Catholics, with a bishop, but it doubled in size from 1990 to 2006.
Corpus Christi, where 70% of the population is Catholic, has also experienced radical growth, but still has only one bishop.
These are membership stats; overall ASA runs about 35%-40%, on a par with protestant churches. It may be lower in Texas due to the Mexican in-migration. I know that Fort Worth has an abysmal 20% ASA.
So… I renew my question: what does a diocese like LA need with three bishops? How do they support mission?