Episcopal Protest of Top Bishop Increases
More Dioceses Reject New Female Leader
By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 3, 2006

To visit Episcopal parishes across her huge but sparsely populated Nevada diocese, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori pilots a small airplane. She often bumps down on tiny airstrips, but wherever her single-engine Cessna 172 lands, she is welcome.

That's about to change.

On June 18, the Episcopal Church's General Convention elected Jefferts Schori to a nine-year term as the denomination's presiding bishop, making her the first woman to head any branch of the Anglican Communion, the worldwide family of churches descended from the Church of England.

Although she will not take up her new role until November, six U.S. dioceses already have rejected her authority, and that number is rising. Many church leaders expect that by the time she takes office, about five more, for a total of 10 percent of the nation's 111 Episcopal dioceses, will have joined the rejectionist camp. the rest