A northwestern Pennsylvania native and former Franklin pastor was ceremonially seated as the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church on Sunday at the Washington National Cathedral.
The Most Rev. Sean Rowe — who grew up in Hermitage, served as rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Franklin from 2000 to 2007, and later became Bishop of the dioceses of Northwestern Pennsylvania and Western New York — was elected to the highest office in the Episcopal Church in June.
In an interview with the newspaper, Rowe said he has taken his experiences in Franklin and northwestern Pennsylvania with him to his new office.
“It’s an honor to serve the church in this way, and an opportunity to put the years of experience in the church and western Pennsylvania to good use across the whole church,” he said.
The investiture service officially instating Rowe as presiding bishop took place Nov. 2. According to the Episcopal News Service, Sunday’s subsequent seating ceremony “acknowledges the cathedral’s place of importance in the life of the wider church, particularly where the church’s mission overlaps with issues in the public sphere.”
Since his investiture, Rowe has presided over the Episcopal Church during multiple momentous events in the public sphere, including a historic election and the funeral of former President Jimmy Carter.
Rowe officiated Carter’s state funeral, assisted by several other members of the clergy, at the Washington National Cathedral on Jan. 9, an experience that Rowe described as a “tremendous privilege and a gift” as well as an honor.
“The president was a deeply faithful man who was faithful in his presidency,” he said. “And, particularly, his post-presidency was a testament to his faith lived out.”
Now, Rowe faces the challenge of leading the Episcopal Church during a time of continued division in the nation and world, and he believes the church will “preach a compelling and winsome message of the Gospel” that “gets above political ideology and political party and partisanship and claims a common ground in the Kingdom of God,” he said.
He said the church’s “deep and rich and expansive Christian tradition” allows its members to “as I always say, ‘Keep the main thing the main thing,’ and that is the love of God in Jesus.”
His roots
The son of a working-class family in western Pennsylvania, Rowe said growing up in the region “has allowed me to grow up around a deeply diverse political environment, a deeply diverse faith-based environment, and learn how to get along with all kinds of people...and people who have had to watch much of what they have loved go away.
“Many of the ways of life that were core to western Pennsylvania have disappeared, but people have been resilient in finding new ways.”
He noted Franklin was no exception to both the experience of loss and the resilience of its citizens.
“Living in the small town of Franklin taught me a lot about how good people work to get along and to serve their community,” Rowe said. “The good people there taught me how to be a priest...I learned a lot about resilience and vision for the future and the ways that small communities are part of the fabric of our lives.”
In other forums, Rowe — who still resides in Erie with his wife and daughter — has indicated his background in a region that saw the collapse of the steel industry will help inform his leadership of a church that is seeing a decline in its own way of life.
An October article from the Episcopal News Service noted over the past 20 years, mirroring trends in other mainline Protestant denominations, Episcopal membership has dropped from about 2.3 million to under 1.6 million.
Rowe has publicly said the way forward for the church is to do things in a “new way,” and he started on day one by holding his investiture service in a smaller chapel and livestreaming it rather than having the traditional 5,000-person event at the Washington National Cathedral.
While also reducing carbon footprint, “what I was saying was that I would like to change the tone of that and allow participation from people all over,” Rowe said, and recalled Franklin was one of the churches that had held a watch party.
“It’s really more my style anyway...I like the small and the understated,” he said.
Serving in Franklin
At 49, Rowe was the youngest person ever to be elected as the Episcopal Church’s presiding bishop; the only younger presiding bishop was the first, William White, who was 41 when he served briefly in 1789 when there was no leadership election.
Rowe also was the youngest ordained Episcopal priest in the U.S. when he began his ministry at St. John’s in Franklin — his first and only assignment as a priest before being elected bishop, again the youngest in the church, seven years later at age 32.
While he was “joyful” to be elected bishop of the Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania in 2007, it was “hard to leave,” he said. “I really enjoyed my time in Franklin.”
Rowe cited the sense of community and the kindness of the people as some of his fondest memories of his time in the Venango County seat.
“There was a real sense of being connected to other people,” he said, recalling running into people at the grocery store and around town, and attending Applefest and the Silver Cornet Band’s summer evening concerts in the park. “I was able to be part of their lives and they were a part of mine.”
And residents were “patient...as I was learning to be a leader in the community,” he said — helpful to him as a young priest. “What I experienced was a lot of grace.”
While stationed in Franklin, he also served on the Franklin Area School Board for four years and was chair of the city’s housing authority — “and you can’t serve on a school board and not learn how to negotiate with people,” he said. “You learn that it’s not just about what you want, but to work in community with other people.”
Rowe said he will “always be grateful for the wisdom and the insight and the learning” that he took with him from Franklin and western Pennsylvania, and he is grateful for the people. “The relationships are what I take with me.”
