Bishop Charles Jenkins Retires

Crozier in hand, Bishop Charles Jenkins on Wednesday entered his cathedral for the last time as head of Louisiana’s 18,000 Episcopalians, leading a celebration of the Feast of the Epiphany that closed, at least temporarily, a 12-year Episcopal career both ruined and transformed by Hurricane Katrina.

Jenkins’ retirement, effective Wednesday, is coming earlier than it should. At 58, he has stepped down on orders of doctors who diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by the storm.

Locally and nationally, Jenkins has described how the post-Katrina suffering of poor New Orleanians transformed his ministry and awakened him to the broad social and economic inequalities of life in New Orleans. But he has said the aftermath also left him medicated, prone to depression and frequently unable to focus on administration.
....

...although he opposes gay marriage and the ordination of partnered gay clergy, since 2003 Jenkins has been among a small cadre of Episcopal leaders who urged the national church to hold together despite its deep and apparently irreconcilable differences over those questions. He has argued that living together with confusion is preferable to living apart in schism.

In 2007, when Episcopal bishops from around the country met in New Orleans with the archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the 70 million-member Anglican Communion, for a showdown over homosexuality that some thought might blow up the communion, Jenkins worked behind the scenes with liberal Bishops John Chane of Washington and Jon Bruno of Los Angeles to fashion a temporary compromise.

“Charles Jenkins was a key, key player in that meeting, aside from being its host,” said Jim Naughton, a liberal Episcopal writer from the Diocese of Washington, D.C. “He was this reconciling figure, and he as much as anyone made that happen.”
....

Jenkins said the diocese closed only two parishes after the storm. He frankly acknowledged that given his own post-Katrina conversion experience, he was little interested in assessing the vitality of 55 congregations and helping them rethink their future.

“Instead, I was pretty drawn to doing prophetic work and the work of justice,” he said. “I was much more interested in that than whether St. Swithin’s somewhere should stay open.”

How many bishops would be as honest and forthcoming? Not everyone in the diocese was pleased with Bishop Jenkins choice of priorities, but I admired him greatly for making the choice to focus on those who were suffering the worst hardships after Katrina and the federal flood. As always, in the worst of times, "the least of these" have the hardest time of it. Bishop Jenkins looked and did not look away but went to work organizing and working to relieve suffering.

When our bishop spoke the words below in the liturgy for his ordination to the office of bishop, he meant them.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, I, Charles Jenkins chosen Bishop of the Church in the Diocese of Louisiana, solemnly declare that I do believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, and to contain all things necessary to salvation; and I do solemnly engage to conform to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the Episcopal Church.

I admire Bishop Jenkins' loyalty to the church in which he was ordained a bishop and his efforts at reconciliation amongst those within the church with opposing views. To my regret, I did not attend the service and reception, but I'd like to have been there to wish our bishop farewell at his retirement ceremony. I was on grandmother duty today.

UPDATE: Oh dear! I left out the link to the article in the Times-Picayune.


From Ormonde, our on-the-scene reporter:

Mimi, I was there and saw your priest, who as always had a twinkle in his eye. The mass was extremely moving, although at two hours it stretched my capacity for endurance. I thought the best part came at the end, when Irvin Mayfield played "Amazing Grace" on his trumpet. Then we all dashed for the reception. A priest came up to me and said, "I hear the wine is a côte du Rhone." My reply: "I don't care if it's Chateau Tchoupitoulas." (An inside joke, for those who know the names of our streets.)

I'd love to have heard Irvin Mayfield play "Amazing Grace" again. Did Mayfield play the Elysian Trumpet? And it's true that my priest always has a twinkle in his eye. So, Ormonde, another missed opportunity for a face-to-face meeting with you. So near and yet so far.



Jazz trumpeter Irvin Mayfield plays Amazing Grace during a September 23 [service] at Christ Church Cathedral in New Orleans.

The piano player in the video, Roland Markham, is right up there with Mayfield.