FORT WORTH: Gulick of Kentucky recommended for provisional bishop
Episcopal News Service. January 30, 2009 [013009-04]
Pat McCaughan
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has recommended the Rt. Rev. Edwin "Ted" Gulick Jr. of Kentucky to serve as provisional bishop for the continuing Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth.
"I am grateful that Bishop Gulick is willing to respond to the need in Fort Worth, and pray that his leadership will support healing and stability as the diocese begins to return to a focus on God's mission," Jefferts Schori said about the recommendation.
Delegates to an upcoming February 7 special reorganizing convention at Trinity Church in Fort Worth will be asked to both elect and seat Gulick as provisional bishop. They will also be asked to elect standing committee members and other diocesan officers; approve a budget and vote to conform diocesan canons to national church standards, according to the Rev. Canon Courtland Moore, co-chair of the Steering Committee, North Texas Episcopalians, the group that is leading the reorganization effects after a majority of the diocesan leadership voted to leave the Episcopal Church.
"Everyone's ecstatic about the choice," Moore said, adding that Gulick received the unanimous support of steering committee members after a January 29 meeting.
Jefferts Schori will convene the special meeting, the first since a majority of delegates at a November 15, 2008 convention voted to realign the diocese with the Argentina-based Anglican Province of the Southern Cone.
Gulick intends to serve both Kentucky and Fort Worth dioceses
If elected at the special convention, Gulick, 60, will serve Texas congregations approximately two weeks per month as he continues to serve as Bishop of the Louisville-based diocese of Kentucky, Moore said.
It may be a "bit of a stretch," Gulick acknowledged during a January 30 telephone interview, but said if elected he intends to "do 11-12 days a month for the next six months, tending to the good people of Fort Worth while remaining faithful to being Bishop of Kentucky." He also expressed concern for Kentucky in the wake of ice storms and his inability to get through to many clergy in the western part of that state.
Gulick, who had announced his intention to retire in 2010, said he secured the approval of his own standing committee prior to the meeting. Initially, he agreed to the dual role "because the Presiding Bishop asked me to."
But after meeting with the steering committee he is very excited about the possibilities for the diocese of Fort Worth, he said. "The energy … the depth of the vision of the people who have meeting together for more than a year is very compelling.
"They have a very clear sense of the Gospel … and why remaining in the body of the church is the right thing to do. I am looking forward to giving good theological underpinnings for those intuitions."
Gulick, who was installed as the seventh Bishop of Kentucky in 1994, said his September 2008 decision to retire was based upon familial concerns, including having four grandchildren under the age of three as well as aging parents. He called for a two-year search and bishop's election.
During his tenure, membership in Kentucky's 36 congregations has increased by 30 percent, to about 10,600 active members. The diocese extends across the western half of Kentucky, encompassing urban and rural congregations.
Gulick may serve as provisional bishop only until mid year, at which time another provisional bishop may be elected to serve until the diocese is ready to elect a bishop, most likely in one to two years.
He received a bachelor of arts degree from Lynchburg College in 1970 and a master of divinity degree from the Virginia Theological Seminary in 1973. He also holds honorary doctor of divinity degrees from Virginia Theological Seminary and the University of the South and received an honorary doctorate degree from Bellarmine University in 2008. He is married to Barbara Lichtfuss, who teaches middle school students at the Anchorage Public School.
Former bishop Iker was inhibited
Jefferts Schori had inhibited then-Bishop Jack Iker on November 21 "from exercising the gifts of the ordained ministry of this Church" a day after a Title IV Review Committee certified he had abandoned the communion of The Episcopal Church (TEC).
Iker had rejected Jefferts Schori's "authority over me or my ministry" and the inhibition. He has maintained that diocesan property belongs to he and other departing members.
Moore and other members of the governing board of the Steering Committee North Texas Episcopalians said they were "heartened" by his inhibition and vowed to reconstitute the diocese. Moore said it is likely that the dispute over diocesan property may involve a lengthy legal battle.
North Texas Episcopalians represents about seven groups and Moore said the continuing diocese includes 15 of the diocese's 56 congregations and about 7,000 communicants. "We're making progress," Moore said, noting that retired and non-stipendiary priests—including one woman—are leading services in the faith communities.
There is also an emphasis on increased communications and Christian education, including a planned diocesan-wide Lenten series, as well as outreach ministry. "The offering at the Eucharist will go to Episcopal Relief and Development," Moore added. "It's an organization that was banned in the diocese before."