Even before his job officially began in March 1999, Chicago’s Episcopal Bishop William Persell pleaded to save the life of a man on Death Row.
At his first diocesan convention in the fall of 1999, he encouraged a call for Episcopalians to get handguns and assault weapons out of their homes.
And when the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2002, an action he loudly condemned, he threw open the doors to St. James Cathedral so thousands of people, regardless of faith, could pray for peace.
But when conservative Episcopalians in 2003 began turning away from their church after Persell and others affirmed the election of an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire, Chicago’s leader turned his attention to keeping his own church alive and restoring peace in the worldwide Anglican Communion of which the Episcopal Church is the American arm.
To do so, he brought together liberals and conservatives in the diocese to study the interpretation and authority of Scripture. And he renewed ties with the dioceses of Southeast Mexico and Renk, Sudan — whose leaders objected to the actions of the Episcopal Church.
“Communion is about relationships,” Persell said in a recent interview. “Building meaningful relationships is more important than other things happening in the [Anglican] Communion. If we have a relationship, we don’t have to agree.”
Since becoming Chicago’s bishop, Persell, 64, has encouraged his 44,000 parishioners from Chicago to Galena to maintain a healthy lifestyle while his own health has been in decline. But he has also tried to maintain his reputation as a champion of social justice and civil rights while trying to keep the church together despite tumult.
Last year, Persell announced to this flock that he would step down as their bishop in February 2008, when a new bishop is installed. An aortic aneurysm and deteriorating vision made the demands of the job difficult. This week, he underwent surgery for prostate cancer. He reiterated the importance of a healthy ministry when he announced his resignation.
“While my mind and heart are very much committed to helping advance the church’s mission here, my stamina is not what it was when you welcomed me into your life,” he wrote.
Although Persell is leaving the Chicago post in the fall to be near family in Cleveland, he will remain a bishop until the mandatory retirement age of 72. Per church canons, he still will have a voice and a vote in the national church. A slate of nominees for his replacement will be released in August.
Priests and parishioners alike say Persell was destined to be a bishop. Born and raised in upstate New York, he attended Hobart College where, in the early 1960s, he joined a predominantly Jewish and black fraternity, laying his foundation as a champion of civil rights. While Persell was at Hobart, his father, Charles, also an Episcopal priest, was elected a bishop suffragan, or assistant to the bishop of Albany, N.Y.
Persell followed in his father’s footsteps and enrolled in seminary at the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Mass., but took a break to teach at the International College in Beirut and travel through Asia, Africa and Europe. On his way through Europe, he stopped in England to meet his father at the 1968 Lambeth Conference, an international meeting of Anglican bishops convened by the Archbishop of Canterbury every 10 years.
Last month, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams told two bishops at the heart of the controversy in the church that they are not welcome to participate in the 2008 Lambeth meeting. New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson, who lives with his longtime male partner, is invited to attend only as a guest.
Persell credits his father and that 1968 Lambeth meeting for awakening him to “the whole Anglican world.”
Ordained in 1969, Persell started his ministry on the West Coast, serving as rector of a Los Angeles parish and eventually becoming vice president of the city’s black clergy association. While there, he met his wife Nancy, a divorced mother of six children. He has since presided over all of their weddings and baptized all nine grandchildren. The family followed his ministry to Brooklyn and Cleveland, where Persell served as dean of Trinity Cathedral.
Ann Austin, who led the cathedral’s search committee, said Persell taught her how to balance her reverence for tradition with the need to change. At a particularly difficult moment when Austin was wrestling with whether to break church tradition in a personal matter “he put his hand on me and said ‘Love God and go ahead,'” she said. “It was the best advice I ever had from anybody.”
It was that mild-mannered approach, parishioners said, that enabled him to create more space in the historic cathedral by removing the pews — a controversial feat he managed to accomplish.
His reputation as an effective CEO and champion of social outreach preceded him when he was called to succeed Rev. Frank Griswold, who left Chicago to become the national church’s presiding bishop.
On his first day, he joined a group of religious leaders protesting the execution of convicted murderer Andrew Kokoraleis. Shortly after, those same clergy called him to be president of the Council of Religious Leaders of Metropolitan Chicago, a group of 47 local religious leaders. In the fall of 2002, he called them to his home to draft an unprecedented statement signed by more than half of the clergy against the war in Iraq.
In 2003, he called a similar meeting among clergy in his own diocese to study the issues that were dividing the Episcopal Church. For as long as he could, he put off deposing conservative clergy supporting breakaway parishes. But Rev. Martin Johnson, who leads a breakaway parish in Wheaton, said Persell finally had no choice. Johnson expects to be the second priest in the diocese to have his ordination rites revoked by the end of the year.
But that doesn’t alter his tremendous respect for Persell.
“To some of us it’s a therapeutic issue and the possibility of healing,” Johnson said. “For him it’s a matter of simply affirming how people are created in God’s sight.”
He knows that he and Persell share a deep love for the church.
They also share a love of opera. Sitting next to each other at the Lyric Opera one night during a five-hour production of Wagner, Persell asked Johnson during intermission if he planned to stay for the final acts. They exchanged knowing looks and agreed to go the distance. Persell wasn’t just talking about the opera, Johnson said. He was talking about the church.
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mbrachear@tribune.com
