Episcopal Press and News
NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA: Search committee nominates three bishop candidates
Episcopal News Service. March 29, 2007 [032907-04]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
The committee searching for a successor to Episcopal Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania Bishop Robert D. Rowley Jr. has announced a slate of three nominees.
They are:
- the Very Rev. James H. Adams, 55, rector, St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Geneva, New York (Diocese of Rochester);
- the Rev. Sean W. Rowe, 32, rector, St. John’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, Pennsylvania (Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania) and
- the Rev. Canon Lexa H. Shallcross, 60, rector, St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church, Emmaus, Pennsylvania (Diocese of Bethlehem).
More information about the nominees is available here.
The diocese's constitution does not permit nominees by petition after the slate has been named, but does allow for nominations to be made from the floor of the electing convention, according to the Rev. Martha Ishman, rector of St. Clement's Episcopal Church in Greenville and search committee chair. She said the committee had compiled a "very talented and exciting" slate of nominees and hoped that no elector will feel the need to nominate additional people.
The electing convention will take place on May 19 at the Cathedral of Saint Paul in Erie, Pennsylvania.
Rowley, the diocese’s seventh bishop, announced in July 2006 that he was taking a "terminal sabbatical leave."
Rowley said in a letter to the diocese that the Standing Committee proposed the idea of a terminal sabbatical because it was concerned that "if I continued to serve as Diocesan Bishop that my physical health would be impacted."
His leave was effective immediately and will conclude August 31, a date Rowley had previously announced as his retirement date.
Rowley, 65, will hold his office until that date for pension considerations, but he asked the Standing Committee to assume ecclesiastical authority until a new bishop is elected and consecrated.
The diocese comprises about 4,800 Episcopalians worshipping in 36 congregations.