
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, November 2, 1993                   TAG: 9311020058
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BURLINGTON, VT.                                LENGTH: Medium

EPISCOPALIANS INSTALL WOMAN BISHOP IN VT.

To jubilant cheers, the Rev. Mary Adelia McLeod was consecrated Monday as the nation's first full-fledged female Episcopal bishop.

"I think it is really a message to women," McLeod said of her historic installation. "It is a sign of hope."

McLeod will lead the church in Vermont, serving as the spiritual leader to the state's 10,000 baptized Episcopalians.

"God bless you, my sister," said the Rt. Rev. Barbara Harris of Massachusetts, who set precedent when she was consecrated as the world's first female suffragan bishop in 1989.

McLeod was chosen June 5 over two other candidates on a third vote of the clergy and lay delegates to the Vermont convention. Church officials said it is not uncommon to have 20 such ballots before candidates receive majorities.

Her selection "is very significant," said the Rt. Rev. Jane Dixon of Washington, D.C., the nation's only other female suffragan, a position akin to assistant bishop.

"It is a message to the church at large," Dixon said of McCleod's appointment.

The consecration ceremony included time for protest from Episcopalians who remain bitterly opposed to the idea of ordaining women bishops.

"If you ordain this woman, you will have to answer before the throne of God," warned Jane Shipman of the conservative Episcopal Synod of America.

Shipman said the ordination of women "is contrary to holy scriptures and the tradition of the Episcopal Church. . . . These issues are not a matter of majority vote. This is a matter of faith and order."

But that argument had little effect on the crowd of 1,500, most of them women who rose to their feet cheering a short while later when the Most Rev. Edmond Browning, the nation's presiding Episcopal bishop, officially installed McLeod.

Those attending included her son, the Rev. Harrison McLeod, and her husband, the Rev. Henry "Mac" McLeod, both ordained Episcopal priests.

McLeod, 55, has been co-rector with her husband of St. John's Church in Charleston, W.Va., since 1983. An Alabama native, she joked that the Vermont priests found the fact she's "a deep Southerner" more interesting than her gender. "Our church really does allow for all of us to have a voice," she said.

by CNB