Episcopal Press and News
UPPER SOUTH CAROLINA: Waldo becomes eighth diocesan bishop
Episcopal News Service. May 24, 2010 [052410-04]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
During a May 22 liturgy that included music and vestments made by the new bishop's sons and sister, a sermon from his brother and communion distributed in part by his father, the Rev. W. Andrew Waldo became the eighth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Upper South Carolina.
The ordination and consecration took place at Christ Church in Greenville, South Carolina with Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori serving as chief consecrator.
The new bishop's sons James and Benjamin Waldo played the cello and mandolin, respectively, during communion, while his father, the Rev. Mark E. Waldo Sr., helped administer the sacrament. His sister, Anne Louise Waldo Gillilan, a professional designer of ecclesiastical vestments and altar hangings from Kenai, Alaska, and a team of four additional artists and stitchers spent several weeks working in an Alabama basement making the vestments presented to Waldo. The Rev. Mark E. Waldo Jr., the new bishop's brother, preached.
A copy of the order of service is here.
Waldo, 56, was rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Excelsior, Minnesota (Diocese of Minnesota), when he was elected Dec. 12 on the third ballot out of a field of seven candidates. He later received the canonically required consents to his ordination and consecration from a majority of the church's standing committees and bishops with jurisdiction.
Waldo, who has taught early music and has a master's degree in the recorder, served parishes in New Hampshire and Georgia before being called to Trinity in 1994.
He succeeds Bishop Dorsey Henderson, who retired on Dec. 31 after serving the diocese since 1995. The diocesan Standing Committee was the ecclesiastical authority in the diocese between Henderson's retirement and Waldo's consecration.
Henderson served as one of Waldo's co-consecrators along with Diocese of Los Angeles Bishop Suffragan Diane J. Bruce, Diocese of Haiti Bishop Jean Zaché Duracin, Diocese of Alabama Bishop Henry N. Parsley, Diocese of Minnesota Bishop Brian N. Prior, Diocese of Ohio Bishop Suffragan (retired) Arthur B. Williams Jr. and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America South Carolina bishop the Rev. Dr. Herman R. Yoos III.
Other Episcopal Church bishops who participated were John C. Bauerschmidt (Tennessee), Scott A. Benhase (Georgia), John C. Buchanan (Quincy provisional), Philip M. Duncan II (Central Gulf Coast), Charles F. Duvall (Central Gulf Coast retired), William O. Gregg (North Carolina assisting), Edwin F. Gulick (Kentucky), Rogers S. Harris (Southwest Florida retired), Donald M. Hultstrand (Springfield retired), Don E. Johnson (West Tennessee), William Michie Klusmeyer (West Virginia), Henry I. Louttit (Georgia retired), Mary Adelia McLeod (Vermont retired), David Reed (Kentucky retired), G. Porter Taylor (Western North Carolina), Charles G. vonRosenberg (Tennessee) and Keith B. Whitmore (Atlanta assisting).
Roman Catholic Bishop Emeritus David Thompson, representing Diocese of Charleston Bishop Robert E. Guglielmone, also attended the service.