Mary Glasspool consecrated in Los Angeles: The Church of England Newspaper, May 21, 2010 p 1.

First published in The Church of England Newspaper.

US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has consecrated the Episcopal Church’s second ‘gay’ bishop, Canon Mary Glasspool, as suffragan bishop of Los Angeles.

In a colorful three-hour ceremony that incorporated traditional Episcopal symbols and liturgy with shamanism and a mosaic of ethnic and cultural motifs, Bishop Jefferts Schori consecrated Canon Glasspool and the Rev. Diane Jardin Bruce on May 15.  The two will be the Diocese of Los Angeles first women bishops, and Canon Glasspool will be the Episcopal Church’s first ‘lesbian’ bishop.

Held in the 13,500 seat Long Beach Arena, the consecrations coincided with the nearby 27^th annual Long Beach Pride Festival, a gay and lesbian community event.  Invitations to the 70,000-member Diocese of Los Angeles welcomed all comers, saying 6,700 seats would be set up for the service.  The Episcopal News Service reports 3000 people attended the gathering.

The service began with representatives from local Indian tribes welcoming the congregation.  They offered a shaman blessing and burnt white sage and a smudge pot to purify the participants in the ceremony.

Other performances included hip-hop dancing, a mariachi band, Japanese taiko drumming, Korean drummers, the University of California Riverside bagpipers and a Chinese American praise band. The Gospel procession was led by a deacon beating an African drum.

In his homily, the Bishop of Los Angeles, the Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno lauded the “two magnificent women” and reminded the congregation that “there are no outcasts” in the Episcopal Church.

“We are a mixed batch, but we are stronger because we are all of those things. We are stronger because we respect the dignity of every human being, that we stand for their right to stand up and be the people of God. It doesn’t matter what their physical ability is, it doesn’t matter who they are, what race, what country they come from, what sexuality they have. It matters that they are people of God,” he said.

In an oblique criticism of conservative Anglican objections, Bishop Bruno stated that “We, as bishops of this church, are called to be exemplars of Jesus’ presence in this world.  We are called to teach people and bring them to a place of self understanding so that they do not, out of fear or anxiety or fear of change, become ideological idolaters of the past.”

Thirty bishops attended the ceremony and seven served as co-consecrators of Bishop Glasspool alongside Bishops Jefferts Schori and Bruno: the Bishop of Ohio Mark Hollingsworth, the Bishop of Long Island Lawrence Provenzano, the Bishop of Maryland Eugene Sutton, the retired Bishop of Maryland Robert Ilhoff, the Suffragan Bishop of Maryland, John Rabb, the retired Bishop of Los Angeles Frederick Borsch and the retired Suffragan Bishop of Massachusetts Barbara Harris.

Bishop Bruno told the congregation “I don’t think there was one person in the place that was more nervous than I was about objections. But we didn’t have any objections today from anybody who was an Episcopalian.”

He added that there were “people outside and inside who came here because they don’t understand the inclusive nature of the Episcopal Church.”

Unlike the 2003 consecration ceremony for the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson in New Hampshire, conservative Episcopalians did not rise to dissent to the consecration of Canon Glasspool, a partnered ‘gay’ priest.  A handful of protestors from the Westboro Baptist Church—a Kansas based independent church known for picketing at public events and funerals related to gay people as well as the US military—demonstrated outside the arena, while a man and boy attempted to interrupt the service.

After the procession was finished, a man seated towards the front of the arena rose and waved a placard condemning homosexuality and abortion.  As he was escorted from the building, he called upon the participants to “repent.”

A young boy then stood up and held aloft a Bible, shouting, “repent!”  Both were escorted from the building, and no other objections marred the ceremony.