TLDR: National Convention 2024 elected the Rt. Rev. Sean W. Rowe, from the diocese of Northwest Pennsylvania and Western New York, as 28th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. Read for more.
The Episcopal National Convention met from June 23-28, 2024, in Louisville, Kentucky to discuss a number of important matters, including 390 resolutions, many of which passed via consent calendars. The Convention re-elected the first lay person to lead the House of Deputies, Julia Ayala Harris, passed a $143 million budget for the next three years, clarified what constitutes the Book of Common Prayer, reexamined disciplinary canons for clergy, and gave consent for seven dioceses to change their governing structure.[1] Perhaps the most important business of Convention in 2024, however, was the celebration of Bishop Michael Curry’s tenure as the 27th Presiding Bishop of the Church. Presiding Bishops in the Episcopal Church are elected by the House of Bishops and confirmed by the House of Deputies for nine-year terms or three full National Convention cycles. Curry was elected in Salt Lake City in 2015 and will end his term on October 31 of this year. He has been one of the most beloved Presiding Bishops in history and we will miss his sharp theological mind, his deep pastoral concern, his phenomenal sermons, and his impeccable wit. There is much for which we must be grateful to Curry, especially the calming of the litigious waters that engulfed his predecessor in much controversy.
The Convention elected the Rt. Rev. Sean W. Rowe, bishop of the diocese of Northwest Pennsylvania and bishop provisional of Western New York, as the 28th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, on the first ballot. Rowe received more than three times as many votes for Presiding Bishop as the runner up in a contest that included five bishops, four men and one woman. Presiding Bishop-Elect, Rowe, who for twelve years was the youngest elected bishop in the Church, (having been elected in 2007 at the age of 32) will become the youngest Presiding Bishop since 1789 (at age 49.) In addition to leading the small diocese of Northwest PA (32 churches and approximately 3,000 members,) Rowe has been the provisional bishop of Western New York since 2019. Western NY has 55 congregations and approximately 6,000 members.
Born in Pennsylvania, Rowe graduated from Grove City College with a degree in history in 1997. “I come from a family of primarily steel and mill workers. That part of the world is resilient, but it was in the process of becoming what we now call the Rust Belt.”[2] A 2000 alum of Virginia Theological Seminary, Rowe served as Rector of St. John's Episcopal Church in Franklin, PA for seven years until elected bishop. He holds a PhD in Organizational Leadership from Gannon University in Erie (2014.) He has held various offices within the national church: “Parliamentarian for the House of Bishops and the Episcopal Church Executive Council; chair of the Episcopal Church Building Fund; and member of the Standing Commission on Structure, Governance, and Constitution and Canons. He also serves on the Greater Buffalo Racial Equity Roundtable. In 2018, he became the first bishop to serve on the House of Deputies Committee on the State of the Church, a position he held until 2023.”[3]
In his acceptance speech to the House of Deputies, Rowe stated, “It’s not too strong to say that we’re facing an existential crisis. It’s not because our church is dying, or because we’ve lost the belief in the salvation of God in Jesus Christ, but because the world around us has changed and continues to change. It changes all the time. And God is calling us ever more deeply into the unknown.”[4] This existential crisis Rowe is talking about has been apparent over the last sixty years, “After peaking at 3.4 million in 1959, it had fallen to 1.9 million when Curry was elected leader in 2015 and dipped to under 1.6 million in 2022. Average Sunday church attendance for Episcopalians nationwide was 614,241 in 2015; by 2022 it had dropped to 372,952.”[5]
Rowe inherits a Church with great potential, with many institutions and dioceses rich in resources and history. Challenges notwithstanding, God has a future and a mission for us. Rowe states, “You do not need to know precisely what is happening to embrace challenges with courage, faith, and hope.”[6] I profoundly agree with him. God is in control of history and there is still a future for the Episcopal Church in America. Please join me in praying for Bishop Rowe, his wife, and his daughter as he prepares to become the face of the Church on November 1.
May our Lord continue to bless you,
Fr. Roman+
[1] For more, see Episcopal News Service
[2] https://episcopalpartnership.org/our-bishop/
[3] Ibid.
[4] https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2024-06-26/episcopal-church-is-electing-a-successor-to-michael-curry-its-first-african-american-leader.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
