Amid loud cheers for the man who had been deposed as their bishop just 50 days earlier, Bishop Robert Duncan was unanimously elected yesterday to lead the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh (Anglican).
“I guess this makes me the eighth bishop of Pittsburgh as well as being the seventh,” he said, joking about making buttons that say, “He’s baaack.”
Turning more serious, he continued, “It’s by our grace and our charity that we need to be known and to move on in mission. We don’t have any time to sit and recover from all that we’ve been through. It’s time to get on with what the Lord is asking us to do.”
He was the only candidate, receiving all 100 lay votes and all but one disqualified ballot from 79 clergy.
“It’s not often you get to vote for the same bishop twice,” said an elated Rev. Ann Paton, associate rector of the Church of the Ascension, Oakland.