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Woman Elected Diocesan Bishop in Rhode Island

Episcopal News Service. October 19, 1995 [95-1269]

(ENS) The Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island elected the Very Rev. Geralyn Wolf, dean of Christ Church Cathedral in Louisville, Kentucky, as the 12th bishop of Rhode Island, September 30. Pending confirmation of her election by a majority of diocesan bishops and standing committees, Wolf will become the fifth female bishop of the Episcopal Church and the second female bishop to head a diocese.

In an initial field of candidates that included four women and five men before one man dropped out, "I didn't feel that gender was an issue at all," Wolf said. "You couldn't coalesce around a woman just because you wanted a woman. You had to get into their personality and skills."

Perhaps, she said, "we're moving on to a routine that simply says men and women can be elected bishop."

Her election in 1988 as the first female cathedral dean actually brought more publicity, and was just as surprising to her, she said. One of the earliest women ordained a priest, "I was hoping some day I would have partial oversight of a parish," she told the Courier-Journal newspaper of Louisville. "And I never even dreamed of being a bishop or a dean."

Election offered full slate of candidates

Wolf was one of four out-of-state candidates, including three women, put forward by the diocesan search committee. Another five Rhode Island priests were nominated from the floor. When the Rev. Robert Anthony of Christ Church, Westerly, who was expected to draw many of the conservative votes, withdrew at the beginning of the convention, observers said those votes seemed to shift to Wolf and the Rev. Canon Clifton "Dan" Daniels of St. Michael's, Bristol, one of the nominees from the floor, who finished second.

Wolf's election is "a real sign of the full welcome of women into the life and the power structure of our communion," said Bishop Edwin F. Gulick of Kentucky. Describing her as a "wonderful theologian and wonderful preacher," Gulick said he was "real excited that her mind is in the House of Bishops at this time in our history."

"She is a very deeply spiritual person, but not in an overbearing way," Christ Church treasurer Wallace Johnson told the Courier-Journal. "She has a quiet style of leadership that really comes through; she's not a raving social activist, but in very subtle ways she is."

Wolf said, "I try as best I can to speak the truth the way I see it. At times I've been vulnerable and taken risks in my ministry, both personally and in the name of the community." She also described herself as "feisty" and "multi-faceted."

Honoring the questions

"I don't easily align myself with groups because I find I don't fit into any neat categories. I can be somewhat contradictory and ambiguous in my own being," she said. "I'm surprised myself at where I find myself going and being and feeling." The gift of Anglicanism, she said, is that "we've honored the questions and we don't have to have the answers. That's what I find exciting about faith."

Initially, she said, she plans to "get to know the people of Rhode Island, the state of Rhode Island," she said. "I don't come with solutions. I come as one who shares in the way."

Wolf graduated from Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge and was ordained in Philadelphia in 1978. Prior to serving as dean in Louisville, Wolf served parishes in the Diocese of Pennsylvania. She is an avid athlete and an artist who has exhibited work in various galleries.

[thumbnail: Geralyn Wolf Elected Bish...]