This Far by Faith: Tradition and Change in the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania

Chapter 10: A Perfect Storm, 1979–2010

10 A Perfect Storm, 1979–2010 david r. contosta The upheavals of the 1960s and ’70s seemed far away in May 1984, a festive time for the Diocese of Pennsylvania. After months of planning, the diocese was celebrating the two-hundredth anniversary of its founding with a host of events. Beginning on May 5, the entire ground floor of the First Bank of the United States was given over to a comprehensive exhibit of diocesan history called Our Common Prayer. Featured were historic altar settings and portraits of all thirteen bishops to date. There were also numerous photographs and documents that chronicled the life of the church. On May 16 there was a huge celebration at the Philadelphia Civic Center, with banners from every parish in the diocese. The exhibit was co-chaired by the Reverend Frank T. Griswold, then rector of St. Martinin -the Fields in Chestnut Hill, and his wife, Phoebe. The Griswolds worked with curator Bruce Gill and a number of volunteers.1 Four years later, in October 1989, the national church observed the two-hundredth anniversary of its founding in Philadelphia. There was a historical conference at Christ Church on October 18–20. The Most Reverend Robert A. K. Runcie, archbishop of Canterbury, celebrated a convention Eucharist at 5:00 p.m. on Friday evening, October 20, and preached the sermon at the 11:00 a.m. service at Christ Church on Sunday, October 22. The night before, the diocese had hosted a banquet at Fairmount Park’s Memorial Hall in honor of the archbishop.2 In fact, the divisions and frictions of the previous quarter-century, focusing on racial cleavages, gender equality, urban/suburban population shifts, the new Book of Common Prayer, and scriptural interpretation, had not gone away. Adding to and exacerbating these tensions were disputes over human sexuality and ongoing financial strains. Most of these difficulties would have surfaced regardless of who was leading the diocese and could be considered signs of the times, locally and beyond. 336   this far by faith Together, these forces produced what might be called a perfect storm in the diocese. This term has become well known, thanks to the book The Perfect Storm (1997) by Sebastian Junger and a movie (2000) by the same name, adapted from the book. Both dramatized the disappearance at sea of six fishermen from Gloucester, Massachusetts, in October 1991 during an unusually powerful nor’easter. Although the troubles besetting the Diocese of Pennsylvania did not threaten to end any lives, a broader understanding of the term “perfect storm” seems appropriate in summing up the difficulties in which the diocese found itself, defined by one source as “the simultaneous occurrence of events which, taken individually, would be far less powerful than the result of their chance combination.”3 City and Suburbs Since the end of World War II, Philadelphia had been experiencing an economic and demographic decline, as thousands of its residents left the city for the surrounding suburbs, or left the metropolitan area altogether for better opportunities outside the region. After reaching an all-time high of nearly 2.1 million people in 1950, Philadelphia had fewer than 1.5 million Figure 10.1 Two-hundredth anniversary exhibit of the diocese in 1984, housed in the First Bank of the United States in Philadelphia a perfect storm   337 half a century later. In order to keep urban parishes afloat, the diocese agreed to subsidize a number of them. In February 1981, for example, the Standing Committee voted $5,000 a year to fund the Reverend Geralyn “Gerry” Wolf as vicar at St. Mary’s, Bainbridge. Wolf became the first woman to have a full-time position as a priest in the diocese, and before going to St. Mary’s she had been the first woman assistant at St. Mary’s, Ardmore, and then at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Chestnut Hill.4 Helping to fund the hardest-pressed urban parishes was the Diocesan Coalition for Mission and Ministry (DCMM), established in 1984 to replace the Coalition of Aided Congregations, formed thirteen years before. In addition to administering grants to parishes, the new coalition emphasized the sharing of concerns, solutions, resources, and mutual support . In 1985, thirty-two parishes belonged to the DCMM, under the direction of the Reverend Franklin D. Turner. Twenty of these received financial support from the diocese, ranging from $72,000 for Christ Church in Old City...