Frank Tracy Griswold, R.I.P.

Frank Tracy Griswold III, tenth Bishop of Chicago and 25th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, died March 5 at age 85. A scion of a prominent Philadelphia family and a descendant of two American bishops, he was instrumental in guiding the church into an era of inclusion, including the ordination of women and members of the LGBT community. Although very much an Anglo-Catholic, he helped negotiate the church’s full communion relationship with the Evangelical Lutheran Church. And even before he was bishop, he participated in the revision of the Book of Common Prayer.

I like to think I participated in his elevation to the episcopate. In 1984 I was a member of St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, a struggling parish on the West Side of Chicago, when Bishop James Montgomery announced his impending retirement and called for a bishop coadjutor—one who would become diocesan bishop on his retirement. Bishop Montgomery had been socially liberal—he had worked with civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King, Jr.—but he was theologically conservative. He opposed the ordination of women, though he did permit other bishops to ordain women in the diocese.

After Bishop Montgomery made his announcement, all the parishes in the diocese were given a chance to weigh in on the candidates for bishop coadjutor. And for me and the other St. Martin’s vestry members, one Frank T. Griswold stood out among the rest. We learned that he had been a member of the group that wrote the 1979 Book of Common Prayer and had been a major contributor to Eucharistic Prayer B. While I wasn’t a member of the diocesan convention that elected Frank Griswold, St. Martin’s delegates supported him.

On November 16, 1986, my wife Kathleen, a Roman Catholic, and I participated in a joint Episcopal-Catholic service. It began at St. James Episcopal Cathedral, where Episcopal Church bishops Montgomery and Griswold, and Roman Catholic Cardinal Joseph Bernardin signed a 12-point covenant between the two churches. We then processed to the Catholic Holy Name Cathedral for the joint service. Bishop Griswold later wrote of the service: “The Episcopal diocese of Chicago entered into a covenant with the Roman Catholic archdiocese in 1985, shortly after I was ordained bishop. In the covenant we agreed to share resources and to collaborate wherever possible in areas of ministry, evangelization and service to the poor and needy.” 

As Bishop of Chicago, Griswold welcomed women into the clergy. His Anglo-Catholic credentials helped ease that transition—by 1997, when he left the Chicago to become Presiding Bishop, 41 of the diocese’s 146 priests were women. In 1994 he was one of 80 bishops to sign a statement declaring sexual orientation to be “morally neutral” and that “faithful, monogamous, committed” gay relationships were worthy of honor.

His election as Presiding Bishop brought him to the center of the worldwide Anglican struggle over the role of both women and the LGBT community in the church. In 2003 he presided over the consecration of Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the first openly gay bishop in the church. “I see no impediment to assenting to the overwhelming choice” of the diocese’s constituents, Griswold said.

In the midst of this controversy, he presided of the 2000 General Convention’s ratification of ''Called to Common Mission,” the compact with Evangelical Lutheran Church, which allows Lutheran pastors to serve in Episcopal churches and vice versa. Again, his High Church background was surely a factor in its passage. And he was co-chairman of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission from 1998 to 2003.

Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, his successor as Presiding Bishop, praised Griswold as a “peaceable diplomat,” who navigated the church though controversial times. “That journey was not easy, but he led from the heart he knew. And sometimes that heart prompted surprising humor, slipped in slantwise,” Jefferts Schori said. “We give thanks for his steady and sacrificial leadership, his deep wisdom and lightheartedness, and his care not only for this chafing church, but for all God’s creatures.”

Originally written for The Tower, a publication of St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church in Elkhart, Indiana. Photo credit, Randy Greve via Wikimedia Commons.