Buffalo bishop becomes youngest elected leader in Episcopal Church

Sean Rowe, a 49-year-old bishop who leads the Diocese of Western New York in Buffalo, on Wednesday became the youngest person ever elected to lead the Episcopal Church.

He immediately issued a sobering call for the Church, facing division and a chronic loss of members, to confront an “existential crisis” that he likened to the collapse of the steel industry in his native Rust Belt.

Rowe, who leads two small dioceses along Lake Erie, will succeed Archbishop Michael Curry, the first African American to hold the position, when Curry’s nine-year term ends Nov. 1. The presiding bishop is the head pastor, president, and president of the denomination. CEO.

Rowe was elected in the first round of the House of Bishops, which met behind closed doors at the Episcopal Cathedral in Louisville on Wednesday. Rowe received 89 votes, the required majority, with the remaining votes widely dispersed among the other four candidates.

The Chamber of Deputies, made up of clergy and laity, confirmed his election with 95% of the votes, followed by loud applause.

The only presiding bishop to take the position at a younger age than Rowe was the first, William White, who was 41 when he served briefly in 1789 when there was no leadership election.

Rowe was 32 in May 2007 when he was elected bishop of the Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania, based in Erie. For nearly 12 years, he was the youngest bishop in the Episcopal Church.

In 2019, he also began overseeing the Diocese of Western New York, based in Buffalo. Adjacent dioceses, with fewer than 10,000 members alone, have collaborated on the ministries in recent years.

He said this type of collaboration is just one example of how the Church must adapt to new realities.

“It is no exaggeration to say that we are facing an existential crisis,” Rowe told the House of Representatives after his election. “It is not because our Church is dying, or because we have lost belief in God’s salvation in Jesus Christ, but because the world around us has changed and continues to change. It changes all the time. And God calls us ever deeper into the unknown. »

The Episcopal Church is an offshoot of the Church of England in the United States and has been the spiritual home of many American founding fathers and presidents.

But as is the case with other mainline Protestant denominations, membership in the Episcopal Church has been in decline for decades. After peaking at 3.4 million in 1959, that number had fallen to 1.9 million when Curry was elected leader in 2015 and to fewer than 1.6 million in 2022. Average Sunday church attendance for Episcopalians in nationwide was 614,241 in 2015; by 2022, this figure had fallen to 372,952.

Rowe compared the Church’s challenges to the collapse of the steel industry, which employed his grandparents, when he was growing up in Pennsylvania.

“I’ve been there to see the things I love disappear,” he said. “I saw everything I had known evaporate.”

He cited tensions within the denomination, without elaborating, and called on members to be more courteous and forgiving toward each other. He called on them to turn their “anger against injustice instead of turning it against each other.”

Still, he offered reassurance by quoting the late Catholic monk and author Thomas Merton — a favorite son of the convention’s host state, Kentucky — about proceeding with faith despite uncertainty.

“You don’t need to know precisely what’s going on” to face challenges “with courage, faith and hope,” he said.

On a practical level, Rowe called on the Church to avoid unwieldy structures and direct more of its funds and resources towards local and diocesan ministries.

Born in Sharon, Pennsylvania, Rowe graduated from nearby Grove City College in 1997 with a bachelor’s degree in history.

He graduated from Virginia Theological Seminary in 2000, before returning to western Pennsylvania.

The bishop is known for his research and work on organizational learning and adaptive performance in the Church. He earned a doctorate in organizational learning and leadership from Gannon University in Erie in 2014.

After the election, Curry congratulated his successor at a press conference. He credited Rowe with “a vision and a sense of mechanics that will help us get there.”

Curry, in his General Convention opening address Sunday, urged delegates to remain optimistic.

“This Episcopal Church is stronger, more enduring and has a future that God has decreed and imagined,” he said. “Don’t worry about this church. Don’t cry or moan. Just roll up your sleeves and let’s get to work. This is our future.

Throughout his ministry, Curry has been an outspoken leader on a range of tough issues, including racial reconciliation, climate change, immigration policy and LGBTQ+ equality. Among his favorite causes: establishing ecumenical day camps for children, building networks of child care providers and encouraging big investments in urban neighborhoods.

In 2018, he became a global star with a moving sermon at the widely televised royal wedding of Britain’s Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

Curry, 71, has been dealing with various health issues since May 2023, when he was hospitalized for treatment of internal bleeding and an irregular heartbeat. In March, doctors successfully surgically inserted a pacemaker as part of ongoing treatment.