California Episcopal seminary awards honorary degrees
Episcopal News Service. October 11, 2007 [101107-04]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
The Church Divinity School of the Pacific (CDSP) awarded Doctor of Divinity degrees, honoris causa, to the Revs. Grant S. Carey, Gordon Kwong-Sum Lau, and Frances Cromwell Tornquist during the Episcopal seminary's annual alumni/ae convocation October 11.
The Eucharist during which the degrees were conferred concluded with a procession to Easton Hall, the building on CDSP's Berkeley, California, campus, where the seminary community and its friends celebrated the successful end to the Preserving Tradition -- Building the Future capital campaign. The campaign raised $21 million to endow four faculty chairs, create an endowment for the Center for Anglican Learning and Leadership, increase resources for scholarships and Graduate Theological Union support.
CDSP's Alum Convocation honorary degrees recognize CDSP graduates, lay and ordained, whose ministry enlivens congregations, the church and the world. Degree recipients have made a significant contribution to the growth of the church, understanding of the faith, interfaith dialogue, the arts and/or the spread of God's mercy and justice in the world.
Carey's priestly ministry has taken him to a variety of settings, from the military to a small rural parish, and from a school in Puerto Rico to college academics and an urban cathedral. A native of Auburn, California, in the Sierra foothills, Grant answered the call to the priesthood while serving in the U.S. Army as an officer in the Korean War. He was discharged from the Army so that he could enroll at CDSP, and he graduated 50 years ago this year. As a CDSP seminarian, Grant helped organize St. John's Parish, Roseville. He served as the vicar of St. John's, Lakeport, before serving as chaplain and then headmaster Colegio San Justo in Puerto Rico in 1961. He joined the faculty of Sacramento City College in 1968, where he taught in the English department for 21 years.
Grant came to Trinity Cathedral, Sacramento, in 1977, and was named canon precentor in 1983, serving in that position for 23 years. He participated in various diocesan and wider-church ministries, and retired in 2006. As Canon Precentor, he orchestrated countless liturgies, visited the sick and poor, and mentored deacons and priests, deans and bishops. He continues to serve as canon residentiary at Trinity Cathedral.
"More importantly, Grant has shown how to live an exemplary life of grace and service filled with gentleness, wit, and friendship toward all," Carey's degree citation said.
Lau was born in China and came to California to attend college. He is twice a graduate of CDSP, first with a Master of Divinity (1976) and then with a Doctor of Ministry (2000). He began his ordained ministry in Hong Kong, became vicar of St. James of Jerusalem in Seattle, and then rector of the Church of Our Saviour in Oakland, where he has served since 1984. Lau chaired the team that produced a Chinese translation of The Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church. Lau has brought the needs of his parishes in Oakland or Seattle or Hong Kong into dialogue with the life of the wider community contexts in which they were found. Through his preaching and teaching he has made his congregations more aware and sensitive to the society in which they live. He has also worked with CDSP students, helping them understand the character of multicultural ministry in the Bay Area. In addition, Lau helped his Oakland parish through a very difficult physical transition from a beautiful church building made for worship to a storefront church originally made for a very different purpose.
"In a long and distinguished ministry as a parish priest, as a translator to church and society in service of the gospel, and as a CDSP alumnus, Gordon Lau has been faithful and steadfast," Lau's citation said, calling him "a translator of cultures par excellence."
As a high-school student in a small town in Utah, Tornquist was challenged, as the only non-Mormon, to articulate her faith in ways that maintained her connections with her peers. In 1970 -- six years before the Episcopal Church would regularize the ordination of women -- Fran took on a full-time volunteer position at Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral in Kansas City. Tornquist enrolled at CDSP at a time when the seminary was just beginning to incorporate women and commuter students into the community. After a year serving as associate and interim rector at St Bede's, Menlo Park, California, Tornquist spent 16 years of ordained ministry at San Francisco's Grace Cathedral, retiring as vice dean.
She was in the forefront of providing pastoral care during the worst years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, not only ministering to the sick and dying, and supporting caregivers and loved ones, but training others to share in that ministry, and leading her congregation in theological reflection on the ministry of hospitality, inclusion, and hope to which this crisis called them, according to her degree citation.
Tornquist has also been involved with the League of Women Voters, has mobilized the cathedral congregation against gun violence and become deeply involved in interfaith ministry. She is credited with "shaping the cathedral into a more responsive pastoral institution, with extensive programs for children and families, diverse adult education offerings, and newcomer ministries," the citation said.