OREGON: Diocese consecrates Michael Hanley as 10th bishop
Episcopal News Service. April 12, 2010 [041210-04]
Pat McCaughan
The Rt. Rev. Michael Joseph Hanley was consecrated the tenth Bishop of the Portland-based Episcopal Diocese of Oregon on April 10 at the Hult Center in Eugene, Oregon.
About 1,600 Episcopalians, visitors and guests attended the 2 p.m. celebration at which the Rt. Rev. James L. Jelinek, retired Bishop of Minnesota, served as homilist, according to diocesan interim communications director J.T. Quanbeck.
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori was the chief consecrator. Former Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning, a resident of Hood River, Oregon, joined numerous other bishops participating in the ceremony. Also participating were the Rt. Rev. Sanford Hampton, former assisting bishop of Oregon, and the Rt. Rev. Robert Louis Ladehoff, a retired bishop of Oregon.
Bishop David Brauer-Reike of the Oregon Synod of Evangelical Lutheran Church in America was among the guests.
"It was an excited crowd, with great energy," Quanbeck said during an April 12 telephone interview.
Representatives of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Rhonde blessed the hall with sacred smoke, drums and song, offering a call to worship, he said.
"Their tribal chairwoman, Cheryle A. Kennedy, welcomed the bishop and church to share the land and followed that with a blessing," Quanbeck said. "Later, the Gospel was read in Chinuk Wawa, and following the vesting, they presented the new bishop with gifts. They also presented the presiding bishop and our former assisting bishop, Sanford Hampton, with gifts."
Hanley was formally seated at Trinity Cathedral in Portland during the regular 10:30 a.m. Sunday service April 11.
Prior to his Nov. 20 election Hanley served as rector of St. Christopher's Episcopal Church in Roseville, Minn. He had served in the Diocese of Minnesota 19 years in a variety of elected and appointed leadership positions.
He grew up in Oklahoma and New York City. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Oklahoma in 1976, and a master's degree in divinity from Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, Ill., in 1981. He also holds a doctor of ministry degree in congregational development from Seabury-Western (2005).
He succeeds Bishop Johncy Itty, who resigned in 2008. Since April 2008 the diocese has been served by assisting bishop Sanford Z.K. Hampton.