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An Episcopalian breaks the stained-glass ceiling Date published: 6/28/2006 By ED JONES T HERE WERE SPRINGER spaniels, Labrador retrievers, a Maine coon cat--and goats. That's right, goats. When a reporter for the newspaper I edited at this month's Episcopal General Convention asked the seven nominees for presiding bishop about their pets, garbage-eating goats were mixed in among the dogs and cats. "We kept goats for better than 20 years in Oregon," Nevada Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told Center Aisle, the newspaper published by the Diocese of Virginia. The bishop's choice of domestic animals was not the only thing separating her from the otherwise all-male pack of nominees. In a surprise to just about everyone, except perhaps to the bishops who were casting the votes, Jefferts Schori (who prefers to be referred to by her maiden and married names) was elected the first female head of a national church in the history of the Worldwide Anglican Communion. She will assume her new duties in November, leading a church of 2.4 million Episcopalians, who are part of a global communion of 77 million Anglicans. The vast majority of Anglicans belong to churches that do not authorize the ordination of women as priests, much less consecrate them as bishops or elect them as presiding bishops. Thus, Jefferts Schori becomes the latest woman to break the stained-glass ceiling at a time when her own church is among those pushing the envelope on gender-based issues, such as the blessing of same-sex unions. But that unique status doesn't seem to give Jefferts Schori much pause. At a news conference just after her election, as journalists prodded her about controversies in the church, Jefferts Schori told the story of her experience as a freshly minted Ph.D. in oceanography on a scientific voyage off the Northwest coast of the United States. At first, the captain of the ship wouldn't speak to her because she's a woman. But Jefferts Schori, stressing the importance of personal relationships over abstract gender issues, said the silence lasted about 15 minutes. The bottom line: We got over it. For a healthy number of Anglican leaders, particularly those from Africa and the rest of the Global South, a key question during Jefferts Schori's nine-year term will be whether they can "get over it."
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