Suffragan is another good word, although it always makes me think of either School House Rock or a Holiday Inn. See, Pappy used to take one of us along on business trips to New York. One time he took me on a trip that included New York City and a trip Upstate. We stayed in a Holiday Inn in Suffren, which at the time was a swanky Holiday Inn. I suspect it is kind of a dump now, but it still has an indoor pool, which was the bee’s knees back in the day. I recall listening to a cassette tape of the “Thriller” album on a Walkman a lot during that trip.
The School House Rock thing is about the 19th Amendment. You know the one, “Well we were sufferin’ until suffrage / Not a woman here could vote no matter what age / Till the 19th Amendment struck down that restrictive rule. (Oh Yeah!)” A whole Helen Reddy homage to the incorporation of 51% of the population of the country. That one stuck with me almost as long as “I’m Just a Bill.” Ah, juvenile fun with the deliberative process!
But we were talking about Suffragans, although, come to think about it, this is about suffrage too. And I’m sure it will have ripple effects in Suffren. Suffragans, you see, are sort of the Subdudes of the Episcopate. They are vice-Bishops, helper Bishops, for the Bishop who cannot be two places at once. The Bishop is still la grande fromage, but these Bishops do the confirmations and ordinations and help in other various ways in a large Bishopric. Or I guess we are calling those diocese right now.
Anyway, the new Suffragan Bishop they elected in Los Angeles has just been approved, as all elections of Bishops must be, by a majority of all the dioceses in the Episcopal Church. No biggie, right? Well, except that this Suffragan Bishop is a gay woman. Still no biggie unless you already had a problem with the gay man Bishop of New Hampshire. As you may recall, that caused some waves and drew calls for his un-election and for the cutting off of the Episcopal Church from the world-wide Anglican Church.
Now, after we put aside the irony of the Anglican Church leaping to the defense of “traditional marriage,” let’s consider a few things here. First off, the Episawhats went for a couple of years without having ANY new bishops to make sure that we felt comfy with the process of electing bishops. Secondly, there have been numerous elections since we started the bishop-making engine back up again that have ended with the straight person being chosen because that is the person the diocese doing the election felt would best serve them. Thirdly, the Diocese of LA is doing the same thing as the Diocese of New Hampshire, or the Diocese of Kampala, or the Diocese of Mekalekahimekachaniho would do: exercising it’s prerogative in the Anglican system to choose those leaders it feel will best serve the diocese. That’s why they quit appointing Englishmen to be bishops in Africa about a hundred years ago. The National Church says, “Yep, you followed the rules and she didn’t lie on her resume. Good on you then.”
Through their right of suffrage, Angelenos have elected a Suffragan who might not be very welcome in Suffren. That’s ok, she works on the other side of the country. If the suffragettes in Suffren have a problem with the Suffragan in Los Angeles, they might want to look at the suffering in their own community first. Anyone who looks outside his own door will quickly see that we need all the good Bishops we can get.