The Episcopal Diocese of Rio Grande is the Episcopal diocese in New Mexico and southwest Texas, the portion of the state west of the Pecos River, including the counties of El Paso, Reeves, Culberson, Jeff Davis, Brewster, Presidio, Terrell, Hudspeth and Pecos. The total area of the diocese is 153,394 square miles (397,290 km2). According to the 2006 parochial report, there are 57 active congregations within the diocese.[1] The see city is Albuquerque, New Mexico and the diocesan cathedral is the Cathedral Church of St. John.
The 1859 General Convention of the Episcopal Church assigned New Mexico to the jurisdiction of the Missionary District of the Northwest under Bishop Josiah Cruickshank Talbot. Bishop Talbot first visited the region in 1863, during the abortive attempt by Padre Jose' Antonio Martinez of Taos to ally himself and his Roman Catholic congregations with the Episcopal Church.[2]
In 1874, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church approved the formation of the Missionary District of New Mexico and Arizona and appointed William Forbes Adams as Bishop of the new mission. He first travelled to Albuquerque in 1875, when nine people attended the first Episcopal worship service at the Exchange Hotel on the Plaza, on March 4, 1875. Adams resigned in 1877 and was succeeded by the Rt. Rev. George Dunlop, under whose presidency the first convention of the Missionary District of New Mexico & Arizona was held, again at the Exchange Hotel, in 1880.[3] Bishop Dunlop is counted as the first diocesan of the region that went on to be known from 1920 as the Missionary District of New Mexico and South West Texas; from 1952 as the Episcopal Diocese of New Mexico (later the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande).
The election of Bishop Terence Kelshaw in 1989 inaugurated a period of change not unmixed with controversy for the Diocese. Bishop Kelshaw was a theological conservative and declined to support ventures and projects whether at local, national or international level that were not in alignment with conservative views. He was particularly vocal on the importance of traditional values in matters of sexual morality. Bishop Kelshaw gradually withdrew from the life of the national Church, and by the time of his retirement Rio Grande was widely regarded as among the most conservative diocese in the Episcopal Church. The extent to which Bishop Kelshaw's episcopate saw the development of a stanchly conservative approach in a sizeable proportion of people the diocese was evident at the Convention to elect his successor, where the nominees included the Rev. Martyn Minns, the high-profile conservative Rector of Truro Church (Fairfax, Virginia) who would go on, in June 2006, to be elected Missionary Bishop of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), a missionary initiative of the Anglican Church of Nigeria primarily comprising Anglican and Episcopal churches that have disaffiliated from the Episcopal Church.
Bishop Steenson shared his predecessor's theological conservatism, though unlike Kelshaw, he came from an Anglo-Catholic background. He voiced repeated and increasing concern about the direction of the Episcopal Church, and ultimately determined he should resign his position and orders, and convert to Roman Catholicism. He resigned [4] in September 2007, and was subsequently received into the Roman Catholic Church. He has since been ordained deacon in December 2008 by Bernard Cardinal Law, the archpriest of the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome, and priest in February, 2009, by Archbishop Michael J. Sheehan of Santa Fe.[5] Fr Steenson is now a Faculty member at the University of St. Thomas and at St. Mary’s Seminary in Houston, TX.
Following Steenson's resignation, ecclesiastical authority in the diocese passed to the Standing Committee, which since March 2008 has been assisted by the Rt. Rev. William C. Frey, retired Bishop of Guatemala and Colorado, who was appointed Assisting Bishop pending the election of a new diocesan. Concurrently with Bishop Frey's appointment, the Standing Committee also announced that the 7th Bishop, the Rt. Rev. Terence Kelshaw, had joined the Anglican Church of Uganda.[6]
The departure from the Episcopal Church of the two previous bishops was a blow from which recovery seems certain to be slow. The diocese has nonetheless regrouped and following a lengthy period of consultation, an election convention was held on April 24, 2010, and elected the Rev. Dr. Michael Louis Vono, then rector of St. Paul's Within the Walls, Rome, Italy, as ninth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande. After receiving the required consents, his episcopal ordination took place on October 22, 2010.[7]
| Honorific & Name | Dates | |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | The Rt. Rev. George Dunlop | 1877–1888 |
| 2nd | The Rt. Rev. John Miles Kendrick | 1889–1914 |
| 3rd | The Rt. Rev. Frederick Bingham Howden | 1914–1942 |
| 4th | The Rt. Rev. James Moss Stoney | 1942–1956 |
| 5th | The Rt. Rev. Charles James Kinsolving | 1956-1971 (Bishop Coadjutor 1956) |
| 6th | The Rt. Rev. Richard M. Trelease | 1971–1988 |
| 7th | The Rt. Rev. Terence Kelshaw | 1989–2004 |
| 8th | The Rt. Rev. Jeffrey Neil Steenson | 2004–2007 |
| 9th | The Rt. Rev. Michael Vono | 2010 |
See also Davis, Evan, History of the Diocese of Rio Grande, The Institute of Historical Survey Foundation, 2007.