The Bishop of Maryland plans to call the Rt. Rev. Chilton Knudsen as the diocese’s assistant bishop. Maryland’s diocesan convention approved a resolution during the weekend that authorizes the Rt. Rev. Eugene Taylor Sutton to make the appointment with the approval of the standing committee.
Bishop Sutton has worked without an assistant since Heather Cook was arrested in December in the traffic death of bicyclist Thomas Palermo. Her trial on 13 charges is set to begin June 4.
Knudsen was elected in 1997 as seventh Bishop of Maine, and served from 1998 to 2007.
She was a missionary in the Diocese of Haiti (2009), presiding judge on the Court of Review for the Trial of a Bishop (2010-11), and bishop-in-residence in the Diocese of San Diego (early 2011).
She then served as interim Bishop of Lexington (2011-12), assistant bishop in the Diocese of New York (2013-14), and most recently assistant bishop in the Diocese of Long Island.
Her books include Restoring the Soul of a Church (Alban, 1995), and two books with Nancy VanDyke Platt: So You Think You Don’t Know One?: Addiction and Recovery in Clergy and Congregations (Morehouse, 2010) and Depending On the Grace of God: A Spiritual Journey through the Twelve Steps (Forward Movement, 2014).
