The Episcopal Church has announced four nominees to succeed Michael B. Curry as presiding bishop.
The nominees are:
Scott Barker, 60, has led the Omaha-based Diocese of Nebraska since 2011. The diocese’s 53 worshiping communities span the full state, where Barker was born and raised. A graduate of Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, Barker was ordained to the priesthood in 1992 and served for 10 years in Omaha and 10 more years in the Diocese of New York before returning to Nebraska as bishop.
Daniel G.P. Gutiérrez, 59, has led the Philadelphia-based Diocese of Pennsylvania since 2016. It is one of six dioceses in the state. A native of New Mexico, Gutiérrez earned a diocesan certificate in Anglican studies through Trinity School for Ministry and has a master’s degree in theological studies from St. Norbert College. He was ordained to the priesthood in 2008 in the Albuquerque-based Diocese of the Rio Grande and served there as canon to the ordinary, chief operating officer. and chief of staff before he was elected Bishop of Pennsylvania.
Sean Rowe, 49, has led the Erie-based Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania since 2007, and he also serves as bishop provisional of the Diocese of Western New York through a partnership the dioceses established in 2019. He previously served as bishop provisional of the Diocese of Bethlehem from 2014 to 2018. Originally from western Pennsylvania, Rowe is a Virginia Theological Seminary graduate and was ordained to the priesthood in 2000 in Northwestern Pennsylvania, where he served in congregational ministry until his election as bishop. He serves as parliamentarian of the House of Bishops and Executive Council.
Robert Wright, 60, has led the Diocese of Atlanta since 2012. The diocese, based in Georgia’s capital city, has 120 worshiping communities across the northern half of the state. A Navy veteran and graduate of Virginia Theological Seminary, Wright was ordained to the priesthood in 1999 in the Diocese of New York. At the time of his election as bishop, he had served the previous 10 years as rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Atlanta. Since 2020, he also has hosted a podcast on faith and life called For People.
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The announcement immediately sparked social media chatter complaining that there were no female or LGBT candidates. Other posters pointed out that the 20-person nominating committee included three female bishops, and Curry’s predecessor, Katharine Jefferts Schori, in 2006 became the first woman elected to lead a province of the Anglican Communion.
The 2015 General Convention also considered a four-person, all-male slate. The bishops overwhelmingly chose Curry, making him the first Black presiding bishop and the first to be elected on a single ballot.
The 28th presiding bishop will be elected this summer at General Convention in Louisville, Kentucky. The House of Bishops will vote in executive session on Wednesday, June 26, immediately after a morning Eucharist.
Later in the day, the House of Deputies will vote on whether to confirm the election. The canons are silent on what would happen if the deputies were to exercise their veto. In 2015, the deputies confirmed Curry’s election by vote of 800 to 12.
The new presiding bishop’s nine-year term begins November 1.
The April 2 announcement initiates a petition process on April 3-15.
The presiding bishop campaign, to the extent there is one, will bear no resemblance to the bitter presidential contest that continues to unfold. The nominees will not give news interviews, and even in private it would be considered extremely bad form for one nominee to criticize another. Each nominee recorded a brief video, available at generalconvention.org, “discussing a biblical image or metaphor that resonates with this moment in the life of the church and the role of the presiding bishop.”
All of the nominees are comfortably young enough to serve a nine-year term before reaching the church’s mandatory retirement age of 72. Rowe is a decade younger than the other candidates, yet also has the longest tenure as a bishop. Barker has the longest tenure as a priest.
Wright initially served on the Joint Nominating Committee for the Election of the Presiding Bishop, but stepped down in October 2022, citing time commitments. When TLC asked if the move reflected an interest in being a candidate himself, Wright said, “Were I interested in being presiding bishop, I never would have put my name in for the nominating committee.” However, he declined to rule out the possibility of being nominated, saying, “That’s not how we preach in this church.”
The nominating committee was co-chaired by Bishop of Alaska Mark Lattime and Steve Nishibayashi, a longtime lay leader in the Diocese of Los Angeles and former member of the Executive Council.
