Charlton Elected Bishop in Texas
Episcopal News Service. May 13, 1982 [82129]
HOUSTON (DPS, Mav 13) -- The Very Rev. Gordon Taliaferro Charlton. Jr. has been elected as a second suffragan bishop in the Episcopal Diocese of Texas. The 58-year-old dean of the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest in Austin was elected at a special diocesan council on May 7 at Christ Church Cathedral here.
As suffragan bishop, he will assist the Rt. Rev. Maurice Manuel Benitez, the diocesan bishop of the jurisdiction which covers 57 counties in southeast and central Texas. The Rt. Rev. Roger Howard Cilley, with his home and office in Austin, has been a suffragan bishop in the diocese since 1976.
Charlton received a majority of votes in both the clergy and lay orders on the fourth ballot. There were 607 delegates to the special council. He was one of seven priests nominated for the post from the floor at the election council. There was no nominating committee to prepare a recommended ballot in advance.
Charlton received a majority of the lay votes on the third ballot and in both orders on the fourth ballot. The Rev. John D. Worrell, Jr., of Houston placed second in the voting.
The bishop-elect was born in San Antonio Sept. 29, 1923 and is a graduate of the University of Texas and Virginia Theological Seminary, Alexandria, Va. He has served parishes in Houston; Fairbanks, Alaska; Mexico City, and Wilmington, Del. For four years he was an assistant secretary in the overseas department in New York and for six years he was assistant dean and professor of field education at Virginia Theological Seminary. He became dean of the Austin seminary in 1973.
In 1948 he and Landon Cutler Crump were married and they have three children.
In accepting his election to the episcopate, Charlton said to the delegates, "Thank you for your confidence. With God's help, I'll try not to disappoint you."
The standing committees and bishops of the Episcopal Church must give their consents to his election before he can be consecrated -- possibly in August -- as the fifth suffragan bishop of the diocese.
The 1980 statistical report indicates that there are more than 76,000 baptized members and 61,000 communicants in the diocese, with 153 parishes and 245 clergy.