The Ven. Dr. Kathleen M. Moore, an educational and community leader who served as archdeacon of the Diocese of Southwest Florida and dean of its school for ministry, died February 18, at 70.
Moore was a native of Driffield, a market town in the East Riding of Yorkshire. After studying modern languages at Durham University, she taught English in Europe for several years before moving to the United States in 1977 to study counseling at Troy State University.
She earned a doctorate in curriculum and instruction from the University of South Florida, and worked as an administrator there for 24 years, retiring in 24 as an associate vice president for academic affairs. She founded the university’s Women in Leadership and Philanthropy program and a faculty awards program (now named for her) to recognize research and creative programs focused on women’s issues.
Moore served on the board of several Tampa-area charities focused on religious education and care for those in crisis. In 2018, she became a member of the city’s Athena Society, an organization for community leaders who are dedicated to promoting equality and opportunities for women. She also sang in several community choirs and was a devoted patron of local musical institutions.
Moore was an active lay leader at St. John’s Church in Tampa for many years before answering a call to ordination to the diaconate in 2016. The next year, she was appointed archdeacon of the diocese, and then became the dean of its school for ministry in 2018. She also helped develop programs within the Iona Collaborative, the network of ministry training programs coordinated by the Seminary of the Southwest.
“She was a wonderful colleague, a great deacon of intellect with a serving heart, and a distiller of creative formation in the lives of the diaconate of this diocese,” said the Rt. Rev. Dabney T. Smith, Bishop of Southwest Florida.
Moore is survived by her husband, Nicholas.
The Rev. William Norgren, who led the Episcopal Church’s ecumenical work for 20 years, died February 24, at 94.
A Marylander, Norgren studied at William and Mary and General Seminary before his ordination to the diaconate and the priesthood in 1953. He served as an assistant at Resurrection, Kew Gardens, New York, and as a tutor and fellow at General for several years before undertaking further study at Oxford.
From 1959 to 1971, during a time of dynamic social change and ecumenical advances, Norgren served as executive director of the National Council of Churches’ Commission on Faith and Order, coordinating theological dialogues between member churches. He was an invited Episcopal Church observer at the Second Vatican Council.
Norgren became the Episcopal Church’s assistant ecumenical officer in 1971 and became ecumenical officer four years later. He coordinated significant advances in the Episcopal Church’s relationships with the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches, as well as with American Lutherans and Polish National Catholics.
During a brief stint as the Episcopal Church’s world mission partnership officer for Europe, he visited the U.S.S.R. to offer encouragement for Christians living under communist restrictions. He also came out of retirement to assist in negotiations that led to the full communion agreement between the Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He was honored with the Doctor of Divinity by General and Berkeley at Yale.
Throughout his ministry, Norgren was a priest of the Diocese of New York, and assisted at the Church of the Ascension, Trinity Wall Street, and St. Thomas Fifth Avenue. He was a devoted member of the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius and a lover of music.
The Rev. Eleanor Lee McGee Street, a chaplain and teacher of pastoral care whose irregular ordination helped pave the way for women’s ministry in the Episcopal Church, died February 21, at 76.
A native of Baltimore, Street graduated from Frostburg State College and Yale Divinity School.
As a theological student she met and married Kyle McGee, who became an assistant priest at St. Stephen and the Incarnation in Washington, D.C., the city’s first racially integrated parish, and a center for civil rights, women’s rights, and peace activism. She was ordained as a deacon in 1973, and served as the first female chaplain at American University.
She was ordained to the priesthood at St. Stephen and the Incarnation on September 7, 1975, alongside three other women, a group who became known as “the Washington Four.” Kyle McGee preached at the illegal ordination, calling it “a prophetic act.” He added, “I pray that our actions will help enable us who are present and the church universal to reexamine our beliefs and practices of priesthood so that we may include all Christians in the ministry of our Lord.” The ordination of women to the priesthood and the episcopate was authorized just over a year later by General Convention.
Street became associate chaplain at Trinity College, Hartford, in 1981, and served the homeless and chronically mentally ill through Episcopal Social Services. She also began a private therapy practice that continued for decades.
In 1987, Street and her husband were called as co-rectors of St. Paul’s, New Haven, and she also became the Squire Professor of Pastoral Counseling at Yale Divinity School. She taught pastoral care, spirituality, and preaching for ten years, and wrote Wrestling with the Patriarchs: Retrieving Women’s Voices in Preaching.
Street was preceded in death by her second husband, the Rev. C. Parke Street, and is survived by two sons, two grandchildren, and three stepchildren.
The Rev. Steven Clark Wilson, who had a dynamic ministry at Grace Church, Carthage, Missouri, for more than two decades, died February 14, at 56, after a long struggle with cancer.
A native of Lebanon, Missouri, he studied at Drury University, Missouri State, and Yale Divinity School, as well as in Heidelberg and Jerusalem. He was ordained in 1994 and began his ministry as an assistant rector at Christ Church, Alexandria, Virginia, where he also served as a volunteer chaplain at the Pentagon.
He became rector of Grace Church in 1999, and under his leadership the parish doubled in size while lowering its average age. He instituted a thriving Latino ministry, and helped the parish completely restore its historic building, install a new 1,100-pipe organ, and create a large garden of biblical plants.
He also held numerous leadership roles in the Diocese of West Missouri, was a two-time deputy to General Convention, and served on the boards of the American Friends of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem and the Boone and Violet Porter Charitable Foundation. He served on the boards of three local hospitals and was a leader in the Cursillo movement.
Wilson is survived by his wife of 19 years, Melinda, and by their two children and a grandson.