Episcopal Press and News
Catholic Cathedral to Host Consecration of Episcopal Bishop
Diocesan Press Service. October 10, 1968 [70-1]
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- The Roman Catholic Church of Christ Our King, Wilmington, Del., will be the scene of the ordination and consecration of the Very Rev. William H. Mead as Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Delaware. The service will take place at 10 a.m. on November 15.
This will be the fourth time since the beginning of 1968 that a consecration of a bishop of the Episcopal Church has taken place in a Roman Catholic cathedral or church.
The first such consecration was held February 10 when the Rt. Rev. Robert B. Appleyard was consecrated Bishop Coadjutor of the Diocese of Pittsburgh in St. Paul's Cathedral, Pittsburgh.
A second Roman Catholic Cathedral, St. Joseph's in Buffalo, was the scene of the consecration of the Rt. Rev. Harold B. Robinson, Bishop Coadjutor of the Diocese of Western New York, fourteen days later. This was, in part, a reciprocation for an earlier favor of like kind done by the Episcopal Diocese for the Roman Catholics around the turn of the century.
The Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. Helena, Helena, Mont., on September 16, was the scene of a third consecration, that of the Rt. Rev. Jackson E. Gilliam, Bishop of Montana.
Consecrator for the Wilmington service will be the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, the Rt. Rev. John E. Hines, Co-consecrators will be the Rt. Rev. Arthur R. McKinstry, retired Bishop of Delaware, and the Rt. Rev. J. Brooke Mosley, Deputy for Overseas Relations of the Episcopal Church's Executive Council. Bishop Mosley, the Bishop-elect's immediate predecessor, assumed his duties at the Episcopal Church's national headquarters in New York on October 1.
Bishop-elect Mead comes to Delaware from St. Louis, Mo., where he has served as Dean of Christ Church Cathedral since 1964. A native of Detroit, the Bishop-elect attended both the University of Michigan and Lake Forest College. He then attended the Protestant Episcopal Theological Seminary in Virginia, graduating in 1950. He was ordered deacon in that year and ordained to the priesthood in 1951.
Following seminary, he served as assistant minister, Christ Church, Bloomfield Hills, Mich., and as rector of St. Paul's, Alexandria, Va. He then joined the staff of the Parishfield Community, Brighton, Mich. Following that, he served as rector of the Church of St. John the Evangelist, St. Paul, Minn. From that position he went to St. Louis.
Bishop-elect Mead served as a deputy to the Episcopal Church's General Convention in 1964 and 1967 and was a member of the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Missouri.