Head of Episcopal Church in town for climate-change conference

She was an oceanographer who once worked in Seattle before she became a priest, then a bishop and, eventually, head of her national denomination.

Now, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has a chance to merge the two parts of her life.

Jefferts Schori, 54, who heads the Episcopal Church in the United States, is in town for a conference today, urging her denomination, and those of other faith traditions, to take action on climate change.

One goal is for national religious assemblies to commit to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by 50 percent in 10 years at every church, synagogue or facility they maintain.

When Jefferts Schori was elected presiding bishop in 2006, she became the first woman to lead a national church in the worldwide Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church is the U.S. branch.

Some rejoiced, while others, who opposed the ordination of women or her support of ordaining gays, did not.

In the years since, the profound disagreements within the denomination over issues such as homosexuality and the role of Scriptural authority have dominated headlines.

Recently, Jefferts Schori spoke by phone from her offices in New York about some of those issues and about the conference.

Q: Why did you leave a career in oceanography to become an ordained priest?

A: Federal research priorities changed in the mid-80s. If I wanted to continue in oceanography, much of my work would have to be as a grants writer. That's not what drew me into science. At the same time, three people in my parish in Oregon asked if I had considered ordained ministry. I hadn't. But I seriously considered it, went through (a process of) discernment. Then I was ordained five years later.

Q: Why are you participating in the "Healing Our Planet Earth" conference?

A: As a scientist and as a person of faith, I am interested in these issues. Faith organizations, faith traditions that have a concern for these issues have an ability to motivate their adherents to do something about caring for creation.

Q: What do you hope this conference will achieve?

A: Educate and motivate Episcopalians and other people of faith.

Q: You recently went to the San Joaquin Diocese in California (which voted to secede from the Episcopal Church) to speak with those who remain Episcopalian. You said that healing is possible. How, when the issues seem so intractable and the divide getting wider?

A: The experience of the people present at the convention in San Joaquin is that healing is happening there. In groups of people with a variety of opinions about some of these hot-button issues, it's remembering what it is that originally calls them together.

Q: Property disputes with breakaway churches are a big issue and getting bigger. What do you say to people who feel it's unbiblical to take fellow Christians to court over issues like property?

A: We have a fiduciary and a moral responsibility as leaders in this church to use and steward the gifts ... for the purposes for which they were given. ... Generations before us gave permission in the name of the Episcopal Church and intended them (gifts and properties) for the benefit of communities and generations to come. (The breakaway churches) are clearly saying they're no longer part of the Episcopal Church.

Q: What about the argument of the breakaway churches and diocese that the Episcopal Church left them?

A: The church has changed repeatedly throughout history. The church has struggled with the place of African Americans in the church, the place of slavery in the church, the place of children in the church, women in the church, immigrants in the church, and today, the place of gays and lesbians in the church.

Q: What do you think is the proper role for the Episcopal Church to play in the Anglican Communion on the issue of ordaining gay men and lesbians and same-gender unions?

A: It appears to be our vocation in this day and age to encourage conversation, to encourage theological reflection about how we're created, what the holiness of life looks like.

Q: Some people find it hypocritical that church members in some parts of the world who are so outspoken against ordaining gays are allowed to have multiple wives. Are they allowed to, and if so, what are your thoughts on that?

A: The (1988) Lambeth Convention (the once-a-decade gathering of the world's bishops) made pastoral provisions for polygamists to be received into the church. ... It seems to me that the church throughout history has made different provisions in different provinces for circumstances that aren't universal.

Q: Do you see the upcoming Lambeth Convention this year as settling any of these issues?

A: The Lambeth Convention's intent is to gather bishops in community and to meet each other as individual human beings. It's never been intended to settle issues.

Janet I. Tu: 206-464-2272 or jtu@seattletimes.com