2023 Convention Report
Videos: Rollouts, Bishops Dietsche, Heyd, Shin and Glasspool plus Admission to the Diocese of All Saints' Episcopal Church, Bronx
Texts of Bishops’ Addresses and Eucharist Sermon
Missing texts will be posted as soon as they become available
Elections to Diocesan Office
Resolutions, New Canons, Budget
Standing Committee
The Rev. Katherine (Kate) Malin
Ms. Nell Gibson
Trustees
The Rev. Richard R. McKeon, Jr.
The Rev. Alison Quin
Ms. Mary E. Farley
Committee to Elect a Bishop
The Rev. Deacon Hyacinth Lee
Ms. Millicent Johnson
Diocesan Council
The Rev. Christopher Lee
The Rev. Meredith Kadet Sanderson
The Rev. Meredith Ward
Mr. Jorge Carabello
Ms. Christy Miller
M. Tina Pinckney
Lay Alternates to the 81st General Convention
Ms. Kyoko Toyama
Mr. Nick Gordon
Mr. James A Forde, Sr.
Ms. Lauren Reid
Clergy Alternates to the 81st General Convention
The Rev. Rigoberto Avail
The Rev. Nicole Hanley
The Rev. Lisa Mason
The Rev. Kirstin Swanson
For Resolutions Printed in the Calendar of Business and Passed at Convention Please Click on the Link to the Calendar of Business.
Resolution from the Floor Honoring Bishop and Mrs. Dietsche
Bishop's Crosses
Bishop Dietsche awarded the Bishop’s Cross to four people this year.
Roberta Todd
Roberta Todd is an active member of Christ Church Riverdale in the northwest Bronx. Professionally, she has her Master of Business Administration from the Wharton School and works in her retirement as a Certified Corporate Project Management Consultant advising and assisting nonprofit organizations primarily in the areas of racial and economic justice.
Roberta is a longtime member of the Anti-Racism Committee of the Diocese of New York, and has brought her organizational consultation to all of the work of the committee. In that capacity she conceived and constructed the format for the Anti-Racism Online Workshop, to provide the canonically mandated Anti-Racism training. During the COVID pandemic this online offering was essential to help people take their training and be certified, and the online resource continues still to provide the January workshops, and supplement the in-person workshops which the committee also offers.
She is also a member of the Absalom Jones Planning Committee, and created an advocacy website by which people in the diocese can vote and support legislation which aligns with our diocesan principles and resolutions. She chooses not to accept the chairmanship of diocesan committees and projects, but behind the scenes she is the backbone and organizer of so much that we do in the area of racial justice education and advocacy.
But several years ago she conceived the idea and brought to completion a project called the Black Presence in the Episcopal Diocese of New York, launched in 2019. The heart of that work is the creation and maintenance of a website on which is gathered the histories and stories of the black experience in our diocese from the time of slavery until our day. There, one can read the history and background of the slave galleries at Saint Augustine’s Church; the history of the African Burial Ground in Harlem; sermons from our Absalom Jones celebrations; the New York Colored Orphan Asylum, the first orphanage for black children in America; along with the records and archives of many of our parishes.
In my estimation, the Black Presence project is an invaluable record of an essential part of our history, and forms the third leg of our racial justice advocacy in this diocese, along with the Anti-Racism Committee and the Reparations Commission. Roberta’s leadership in the creation of this resource has added the deep history of black people to the work we are doing in fighting long established patterns of racism in our midst.
Therefore, in recognition and gratitude for her commitment to racial equality and justice, and her stalwart support of racial justice education and advocacy in our diocese, and all offered to the glory of God, we, on this 11th day of November 2023, in the twelfth year of our consecration, do award her
The Bishop’s Cross
The Right Reverend Andrew ML Dietsche
XVI Bishop of New York
Richard R. McKeon Jr.
The Reverend Richard R. McKeon has served his entire priestly ministry in the Diocese of New York, first pastoring Westchester County parishes, while also serving as Assistant to the Suffragan Bishop Cathy Roskam, and then in 2010 becoming the Rector of the Church of the Messiah in Rhinebeck. In early 2022, Richard led his parish into responding to the call by our government for communities to assist Afghan citizens who had been associated with the U.S. during the war and were now in danger of retribution from the Taliban government. The Church of the Messiah called together other interested persons and organizations in Rhinebeck and they came together to sponsor a young refugee family and their children, and have successfully resettled them in the Hudson Valley. The parish continues yet to provide them with the material support they need to make a home in America. But in the time since then Richard learned from this family that there were three sisters in the family, still in Afghanistan, whose lives were at high risk, as they had been targeted for assassination by the Taliban for their American associations. By the time this story began in the Diocese of New York, the girls had escaped to Pakistan, where they became stuck and could go no further. Richard began taking the steps to help their emigration, and doing those things which would be needed when the time came that it would be possible to remove them to America. The necessary travel documents were gathered and the sisters began to study English. In addition, Richard approached Leon Botstein, President of Bard College, and entered into a partnership with the school, which by this time had extensive experience in assisting Afghan refugees in their journey to America, and who promised to enroll all three girls in school if they could be gotten to America. That partnership proved more than fruitful, but while those preparations were being made, in the late spring of this year, a gang of Taliban soldiers came into their home in Pakistan and administered a savage beating to the sisters, reminding them and assuring them that they were still under a Taliban sentence of death. Richard rallied help at once and facilitated their removal to the city of Islamibad, to an apartment near the American embassy where it was hoped that they would be safer. There, they have continued their studies while they await emigration. But more recently, the Pakistan government has removed the protection it has given to Afghan refugees, and the girls are again in great uncertainty and grave danger and cannot stay where they are. This story is not over. We do not know how it will end. There are new chapters yet to write, but in all this the one certainty is the commitment that Richard has given them and the risks he has run to protect them. Therefore, in recognition and gratitude for his love and compassion for the marginalized and the oppressed, and his labors on behalf of those in danger, and all offered to the glory of God, we, on this 11th day of November 2023, in the twelfth year of our consecration, do award him
The Bishop’s Cross
The Right Reverend Andrew ML Dietsche
XVI Bishop of New York
Iyad Qumri
Iyad Qumri is a Christian Palestinian, living in the Diocese of Jerusalem, and attached to Saint George’s Cathedral and Guest House in East Jerusalem. With his sons Rami and Sami, he operates a business offering tours of the Holy Land to pilgrims across the Anglican Communion. In that capacity he has led pilgrimages for parishes and people across the Diocese of New York, and he has become a dear friend of many in our diocese, including this bishop. Iyad describes the Palestinian Christians as the “Living Stones” of the Holy Land; the people who have been there all along, sustaining and maintaining the holy sites, and offering hospitality to visitors from all the world. He tells of Americans who may not fully understand the rich history of that ancient land, who come to Palestine and ask him, “How long has your family been Christian?” To which he replies, “Since the Pentecost.” The Palestinians have been in the Holy Land and in the holy city of Jerusalem from the start. Iyad has strong and well-established bonds of affection not only across the Christian community of Jerusalem and Palestine, but with Israeli Jews and Palestinian Muslims who share with him a commitment to peace and a common shared life in the land. With malice toward no one, Iyad carries the heavy history of his people and the daily burdens of living in an occupied land, and as he leads pilgrims through the sacred sites of Our Lord’s life and ministry, he gently unfolds for his guests both the realities of life in Palestine in the first century, but also in the twenty-first century, and the costs of it. One can lay one’s hand on the barrier wall in Bethlehem, or look across toward Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, or press one’s head in prayer against the Western Wall, and observe, “this is a place of walls; a place of separation.” It is the gift of our brother Iyad to open our eyes to see it, and to understand, and always with gentleness and love and Christian fellowship. It is through Iyad’s work of hospitality and education that hundreds of people across our diocese have been exposed to the living history behind the Bible, and discovered within themselves new reservoirs of faith and understanding. Drinking water from Rachel’s Well, bathing one’s feet in the Jordan River, walking the Way of the Cross through the ancient narrow streets of Jerusalem, exploring the countless mysteries of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, or just eating the hummus and olives at Saint George’s of an evening, many a pilgrim has lifted their eyes and said “I will never read the Bible in the same way again.” Therefore, in recognition and gratitude for his ministry of teaching and guiding and leading, and of introduction to the mysteries, and all offered to the glory of God, we, on this 11th day of November 2023, in the twelfth year of our consecration, do award him
The Bishop’s Cross
The Right Reverend Andrew MLDietsche
XVI Bishop of New York
Judi Counts
Judi Counts is an active member of the Diocese of New York, who has for a number of years chaired the Global Women’s Fund of this diocese. The Global Women’s Fund provides educational grants to Anglican women in the Developing World. In many cases the education provided through the global women’s fund has helped young women and girls escape grinding poverty, childhood marriage, and instead to find access to higher education, professional lives, and the freedom that comes from independent living.
Judi works as the Executive Director of the House of the Redeemer in Manhattan. The House of the Redeemer was built in 1914 to be the residence of Edith Shepard Fabbri, a great granddaughter of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt. The house is an architectural masterpiece in our city, and through the whole of its history has been the venue for many cultural and musical offerings.
But in 1949 Edith Fabbri heard a sermon preached by Bishop Austin Pardue on the necessity of silence and prayer in the spiritual life, and at once she deeded the house to a board of trustees under the auspices of the Episcopal Church to be “a place apart.” For the next thirty years the house was administered by the Sisters of Saint Mary, an Episcopal order, and then by a residential warden. A number of years ago, Judi took on that oversight and stewardship, and under her leadership has created and expanded the opportunities in the house for spiritual retreat for the ordained and lay members of the Diocese of New York and the wider church. The House of the Redeemer has become a wellspring of spiritual resource across the whole of the Episcopal Church. Judi has continued the life of the House, following the model of Our Lord, who we are told regularly withdrew to a quiet and private place to spend time in prayer and contemplation and in the renewal of his spiritual being.
As a religious peculiar, the House of the Redeemer is not under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of New York, nor of any parish institution. Rather, the House reflects the gathered wisdom and devotion of committed lay and ordained members of our diocese who come together with Judi to continue, to preserve, and to sustain a place in the center of the city of New York for religious and spiritual retreat, “a place apart.”
Therefore, in recognition and gratitude for her spiritual hospitality to those seeking retreat in the midst of this great and vibrant city, and all offered to the glory of God, we, on this 11th day of November 2023, in the twelfth year of our consecration, do award her
The Bishop’s Cross
The Right Reverend Andrew ML Dietsche
XVI Bishop of New York