Monday, January 16, 2012

Initial Candidates Announced

As many readers will already know, four candidates for Bishop of Pittsburgh have been put forth by the Standing Committee. They are:
  1. The Rev. Canon Michael N. Ambler, Jr., Rector of Grace Episcopal Church, Bath, Maine
  2. The Rev. Dorsey W. M. McConnell, Rector of Church of the Redeemer, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
  3. The Rev. R. Stanley Runnels, Rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Kansas City, Missouri
  4. The Rev. Ruth Woodliff-Stanley, Rector of St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Denver, Colorado
The official announcement is here. We now enter a period during which additional candidates can be nominated by petition. Petitions need to be postmarked by February 5, 2012.

Since only names, current positions, and photographs of the candidates have been released, anyone who feels strongly that someone else would be a good candidate is in a difficult position. If such a person knew more about the candidates, it would be easier to say either that the slate is strong and there is no need for additional candidates or that the slate is not strong and other candidates are indeed needed. Even if one is willing to give the Standing Committee the benefit of the doubt—I count myself in this category—the need to know more about the candidates is irresistible, and it is unreasonable to suggest that everyone should wait until the final slate is determined before attempting to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of those whose names have now been placed before us.

It would be a terrible duplication of effort for all Pittsburgh Episcopalians to be Googling the candidates and to be finding the same information. I therefore suggest that we use this blog to collect and distribute candidate information. Opinion is also welcome, but it should be tied to particular information you have discovered.

If you leave comments here, we will try to aggregate the information, so that people can go to a single page to access it. When the Standing Committee releases information, we will have more data before us, but the effort expended before then will not have been wasted. If you know any of the candidates or know someone who does, we would like to hear from you also.

Let me begin by offering the Web sites of the churches the candidates are presently leading:
  1. The Rev. Canon Michael N. Ambler, Jr.: Grace Episcopal Church, Bath, Maine
  2. The Rev. Dorsey W. M. McConnell: Church of the Redeemer, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
  3. The Rev. R. Stanley Runnels: St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Kansas City, Missouri
  4. The Rev. Ruth Woodliff-Stanley: St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Denver, Colorado
OK, then. Let the Googling begin!

3 comments:

  1. I agree that I was surprised not to see even brief biographies of the candidates released along with the list. I believe that the SC is planing to release them all at the same time along with any petition candidates who are nominated, but of course I have been using Google to do my own research, as I am sure have many others.

    Unfortunately, the coverage of each candidate on their parish website and the broader internet is different and so it is impossible to obtain an equal understand of each. Two, I believe, have bios on their parish websites that I could find, and a third candidate has a video of his announcement to his parish about his nomination posted.

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  2. Additional information about the candidates can be found in today’s story in the Post-Gazette.

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  3. The diocese has now added information about the candidates to its announcement. The information is very helpful. Among other things, it is clear that each of the candidates has had a high-powered education. Click under the pictures for more information in the announcement.

    I found the engagement announcement for Ambler in The New York Times pretty interesting as well.

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