Archbishop congratulates Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, on honorary Oxford degree

http://www.anglicannews.org/news/2014/02/archbishop-congratulates-bishop-katharine-jefferts-schori,-the-presiding-bishop-of-the-episcopal-church,-on-honorary-oxford-degree.aspx

Archbishop Justin has welcomed news that the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, is to be awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity by the University of Oxford.

He said: “I am delighted by the news that the Most Revd Dr Katharine Jefferts Schori is to receive an honorary Doctor of Divinity from the University of Oxford. This award, richly deserved, reaffirms Bishop Katherine’s remarkable gifts of intellect and compassion, which she has dedicated to the service of Christ. Prior to becoming ordained, Bishop Katherine pursued a career in oceanography, and her enduring deep commitment to the environment has evolved into a profound dedication to stewardship of our planet and humankind, especially in relieving poverty and extending the love and hospitality of Christ to those on the edges of society. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said of Bishop Katherine, "In her version of reality, everything is sacred except sin." It must be noted, too, that Bishop Katherine’s achievements serve – and will continue to serve – as a powerful model for women seeking to pursue their vocations in the church.”

Elizabeth Blackwell Award

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/page/elizabeth-blackwell-award

Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Katharine Jefferts Schori

Sunday, November 10, 2013

I am humbled by this honor, and reminded that I stand here only because of the difficult work done by so many women and men before me.  Elizabeth Blackwell went through 29 medical schools before she found one that would admit her, albeit grudgingly after what looked like another attempt to keep her and her gender out.  I give thanks for the male deans and professors who kept their word, even if given in jest.

An awful lot of women, and many people outside official circles of leadership, have tried and failed to gain entry to many different vocations and opportunities.  We remember the ones who prevailed in the face of prejudice or doubt.  None of those named trailblazers made their entry wholly on their own.  At the same time the remembered ones have continued to inspire others to try. 

My own journey has been inspired by Amelia Earhart – for her intrepid courage and mysterious disappearance – and by Antoine de Saint-Exupery and Beryl Markham.  I’ve been inspired by the witness of Jeannette Piccard – pioneer balloonist and first woman ordained an Episcopal priest – and other members of her family – Auguste and Jacques, who went exploring in the other direction, into the depths of the sea.  I have been inspired by Marie Curie – pioneer in radioactivity, first woman and first double Nobel laureate, and by her younger colleagues – Einstein, Heisenberg, and Bohr.  In recent years, I would note the often nameless women who have insisted on peace in their homelands – the market women of Liberia who demanded the warlords make peace, and literally sat down around them until they did.  The women of the Niger Delta who shamed the oil companies into doing something about the violence and environmental degradation being visited on their people.  I continue to marvel at the women and men of Rwanda and Congo who keep working to heal the war trauma that has so damaged their societies.

I celebrate the remarkable leaders and pioneers of this part of New York, and the outsized witness of Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony, and their sisters.  It started with a tea party in Waterloo, and had a rather different outcome than the tea party we’re wrestling with right now.  That gathering in Seneca Falls was joined by quite a few men, and Frederick Douglass added his voice for greater access and full participation by all human beings.  This was about the liberation of the many, rather than special rights and greater power for leaders already inside and in power.  There was a powerful tide at work in those tea cups around here in the 1840s. 

That tide keeps washing away barriers of gender and race and ethnicity and social class.  As our brother Martin put it, “the arc of the moral universe is long, and it bends toward justice.”  That arc bends toward the shores of a land where all dwell in peace because there is ultimate justice for all humanity and for all creation.  We live in hope for that world, and Hobart and William Smith Colleges are part of encouraging the leaders of today’s tea parties and kaffeeklatsches and symposia to help bring that world to reality.  Thank you for your leadership.

ABC to meet with the PB

The new Archbishop of Canterbury plans to meet with KJS in 2014.

Bishop Katharine is now on Facebook and Twitter!

She now has an official Facebook page and Twitter account, according to The Lead!


Link to the links!

WASHINGTON NATIONAL CATHEDRAL April 21, 2013 11:15 AM, Easter IV Sermon by The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori

http://www.nationalcathedral.org/mp3s/kjs20130421.mp3

Christmas Message 2012

Christmas Message 2012

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them light has shined. Isaiah 9:2

These words were spoken long ago to people living in anxiety, fear, and despair, people feeling bereft of security, safety, and any sense of God’s presence. We hear them early on Christmas, forgetting that they were first spoken hundreds of years before the birth we celebrate. Human beings across this planet still yearn to know that a more gracious and divine reality is active and evident in our lives.

The birth we celebrate is meant for this world mired in darkness and fear, yet it also becomes easier to discover in a tiny voice crying in protest over being cold and wet and hungry. We hear that cry in the midst of war’s ravages in Congo and Afghanistan, in the rubble of hurricane and earthquake, in the demeaning of chronic poverty, behind prison bars. That flickering of hope surges as the world turns to investigate this surprising new life, one heart at a time. The light grows as hearts catch fire with the same light that illumines the stars, pulsing hope and new life, even out of black holes.

Those who search in dark and despair, in dank dungeon and deep devastation, will find divine light given for the world. Light that will not be put out, so long as any creature remains to receive it, until and beyond the end of time. The darkness will never put it out.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. John 1:5

Go and look – and discover the love of God poured into our world in human form. Hope reigns abroad, in the cosmos and in human hearts. And rejoice, for a child of the light is born in our midst!

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop and Primate
The Episcopal Church

General Convention 2012