Samuel Johnson Howard
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| Denomination | The Episcopal Church |
|---|---|
| Senior posting | |
| See | Florida |
| Title | Bishop of Florida |
| Period in office | 2004 — present |
| Consecration | November 1, 2003 |
| Predecessor | Stephen Hays Jecko |
| Successor | Incumbent |
| Religious career | |
| Priestly ordination | 1990 |
| Personal | |
| Date of birth | September 8, 1951 |
| Place of birth | North Carolina |
The Right Reverend Samuel Johnson Howard (born September 8, 1951) is the eighth bishop of the Diocese of Florida in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. [1] Howard was elected bishop Coadjutor on May 16, 2003 and entered office on January 29, 2004.
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[edit] Early career
Bishop Howard was born September 8, 1951 and was a North Carolina native. He is a 1973 graduate of Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts and has been married to his wife, Martha Marie, since 1974. They have two grown sons, Augustus and Charles.
Howard graduated from the Law School of Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 1976.
He practiced law in Raleigh, North Carolina from 1976 through 1986, serving as Assistant United States Attorney and Lead Attorney for the Federal Drug Enforcement Task Force for the Eastern District of North Carolina. He was responsible for establishing and directing the Federal Public Defender office in the state. He also served as an attorney on the staff of the Commerce Committee of the United States Senate.
[edit] Religious career
Bishop Howard radically changed his career by returning to school and graduating from Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia with a Masters of Divinity. He was ordained as a deacon in June, 1989, and a year later was ordained as a priest.
His first position was Assistant to the Rector of Holy Comforter in Charlotte, North Carolina, then Rector of St. James' Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. [2]
[edit] Wall Street
Howard served as Vicar of Trinity Church Wall Street from December, 1997 until he left for Florida in 2003. He was active in church and community activities, serving as president of John Heuss House, a homeless drop-in shelter in downtown Manhattan; a board member of St. Margaret's House, which furnishes housing for the elderly and mobility-impaired in New York; and a board member of the Downtown Alliance, a lower Manhattan organization similar to a chamber of commerce.
Trinity Church, located at the intersection of Broadway & Wall Street, is the richest church in the world. The parish owns 200 acres of land on Manhattan Island, including 26 commercial buildings in Lower Manhattan, totaling nearly 6 million sq ft. in office, retail, and manufacturing space. The church has started, endowed or aided more than 1,700 churches, schools, hospitals, and other institutions with the millions of dollars those assets produce.
[edit] National controversy
The issue over acceptance of homosexuality in the Episcopal Church erupted when Gene Robinson, an openly gay priest, was elected Bishop of New Hampshire on June 7, 2003. The controversy over the ordination of women came to head when Katharine Jefferts Schori, a woman, was elected Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America in 2006. Some conservative members viewed this as the “final straw” in the “moral and spiritual decline of the Episcopal Church”. Half a dozen parishes in the Diocese of Florida voted to withdraw from the Episcopal Church and affiliate with another Anglican Church. Bishop Howard took a hard line against those congregations and their rectors.
