Reinstated Colorado Priest Accepts Call in Minnesota

Episcopal News Service. September 28, 1998 [98-2232B]

(Episcopal Life) Just days after Bishop Jerry Winterrowd reinstated the Rev. Sandra Wilson as rector of St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Wilson announced in September that she had accepted a call from a parish in Minneapolis.

Wilson, 45, a member of Executive Council who was elected president of the Union of Black Episcopalians in July, was temporarily inhibited last March by Winterrowd after three women made formal complaints of sexual and ethical misconduct.

Wilson, a nominee for suffragan bishop of the Diocese of Maryland at that time, withdrew from the selection process.

After a diocesan response team conducted an investigation and made its confidential report to Winterrowd, the bishop issued a single-sentence statement in August that he and Wilson "had entered into an agreement which addresses the subject matter of the inquiry."

During her sermon on Sept. 6, Wilson told her congregation the decision to leave was hers alone. "In light of what we've been through I cannot stay," she said.

Dismissing suggestions that she had been asked to leave, Wilson told Episcopal Life she had been part of the search by the Minneapolis parish since January. "When this thing [the investigation] was over, they called me and I accepted," she said.

Wilson, who said the complaints were raised to prevent her election to the episcopacy in Maryland, said she intends to remain on Executive Council as a representative from Province 6.