Ballot 1         
The Rt. Rev. J. Neil Alexander                 26    
The Rt. Rev. Francisco Duque-Gomez     18    
The Rt. Rev. Edwin F. Gulick, Jr.             15    
 The Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori     44  
The Rt. Rev. Charles Edward Jenkins III    29    
The Rt. Rev. Henry N. Parsley, Jr.           36    
The Rt. Rev. Stacy F. Sauls                      20    
Votes cast

    188    

Needed to elect

    95    

The Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori     ballot 1- 44     ballot 2- 49     ballot 3- 68     ballot 4- 88     ballot 5- 95

This is the way the IRD wrote about the vote, giving the impression that Schori didn't have enthusiastic support.

The Episcopal Church's House of Bishops, sequestered in Trinity Episcopal Church here in Columbus, Ohio, chose the Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Bishop of Nevada, as the 26th presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church on Sunday afternoon.  She was elected on the fifth ballot, securing 95 of 188 votes-the absolute minimum necessary to secure the office.

The AAC/IRD bunch is as misogynistic as they come but they knew they couldn't use their antifemale bias as a wedge issue.  Most women throughout all parts of the Episcopal Church would have a fit about it.  From their comments, it seems they prepared to deal with the gay lesbian fight, not the feminist fight.

Excerpt from A Statement from the AAC on the Election of the Episcopal Church's 26th Presiding Bishop
The House of Deputies has confirmed the election of the Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori as the 26th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. We feel sorrow for her, as she inherits the tragedy of a fractured church that has lost its sense of mission and lost touch with its grassroots. She must also deal with the failed episcopacy of Frank Griswold, a legacy that will be difficult to overcome. We will pray earnestly for Presiding Bishop-elect Jefferts Schori as she prepares to take this new position. (yeah and we can imagine what those prayers will be)

What signal does this choice send to the faithful in the pew and to the Anglican Communion worldwide? The election of Presiding Bishop-elect Jefferts Schori only intensifies the current trajectory of the Episcopal Church.

At the 2003 General Convention, Jefferts Schori voted against Resolution B001, which sought to affirm basic tenets of faith, including the authority of Holy Scripture; voted for the consecration of V. Gene Robinson; and is on record for her support of the blessings of same-sex unions. Jefferts Schori's election will obviously present problems for those who do not recognize the ordination of women priests.......In addition, she is the least experienced of all the nominees, having been ordained a priest in 1994 and consecrated as bishop of Nevada in 2001........She served as a member of the Special Commission on the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, which produced inadequate resolutions in response to the Windsor Report.

The ultra right conservatives in the Roman Catholic Church however, made statements June 9th in preparation for the possiblility of a woman presiding bishop in the USA.

Cardinal Walter Kasper, the head of the Council for Christian Unity, has urged the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and his fellow bishops not to proceed towards women becoming bishops without support from the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches......He gave warning that bishops risked overdoing their Church's traditional comprehensiveness: "Without identity, no society, least of all a church, can continue to survive."

Cardinal Kasper, a compatriot of the Pope who as a young priest taught, like him, at Tübingen University in Germany, addressed a private meeting this week of the Church of England's bishops at Market Bosworth, Leicestershire.

He made clear that while the Catholic Church would not break off talks with Anglicans, the tone of ecumenical dialogue would change. "Ecumenical dialogue in the true sense of the word has as its goal the restoration of full Church Communion. That has been the presupposition of our dialogue until now. That presupposition would realistically no longer exist following the introduction of the ordination of women to episcopal office."

One more thing, Casper's comment about dialogue is just wrong.

Ecumenical dialogue in the true sense of the word has as its goal the restoration of full Church Communion. That has been the presupposition of our dialogue until now.

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