The Margaret Parker Memorial Lecture and Webcast
featuring
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori
introduced by
Harvard University lecturer Richard Parker
Delivered on December 6, 2008
Click here for standalone player
What are the keys to peace and justice through the empowerment of women, especially amid the challenges of the current global financial context? The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, took up this topic in inaugurating the Margaret Parker Memorial Lecture Series on December 6, 2008 from the Riverside Convention Center in Riverside, California.
The Presiding Bishop was introduced by one of Parker’s sons, Richard, an economist and Harvard lecturer, who was welcomed to Riverside by Bishop J. Jon Bruno of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles.
The lecture and webcast occurred as part of the 113th Convention meeting of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles.
Remembering Margaret Lambertson Parker
Margaret Parker, who died in 2007 at age 93, was the wife (and then widow) of the Rev. Dr. Richard Parker, who served the Diocese of Los Angeles for 52 years, 42 of them as rector of St. Cross Church, Hermosa Beach. The couple is pictured above in an undated photo.
Margaret served the Church as well for more than 70 years, and not just as a clergy wife—an honorable role of its own—but as her husband’s partner and in her own right. She was his counsel and inspiration in a ministry that transformed a tiny beachside congregation into an Episcopal mega-church; after her children left for college, with his counsel, she became a quietly forceful leader statewide among Episcopal women and then Church Women United. In the Diocese of Los Angeles, she was a co-founder of the Episcopal “Today’s Woman” conference, which continues today as “Tomorrrow’s Woman.” Bishop J. Jon Bruno recognized Margaret’s ministry by naming her an honorary canon of the Cathedral Center of St. Paul.
Margaret’s steady and far-sighted role proved invaluable in negotiating the crucial 1960s and ’70s, as the Episcopal Church made room for a new understanding of women and minorities, listening to God’s call for them to share in the Church’s leadership. St. Cross, not surprisingly, in 1976 was one of the country's very first Episcopal parishes to hire a woman curate; in 2009 it will call its first female rector.
Margaret’s life turned around her family, her church, her community—and most deeply around her commitment to justice as the expression of love. She treasured W.H. Auden’s answer, when asked whether he considered himself a Christian. “I’m trying,” he replied, “I’m trying.”
The Margaret Parker Memorial Lecture Series has been established by family members and friends – including many St. Cross parishioners – to honor Margaret Parker by addressing topics of “Peace and Justice through the Empowerment of Women.” Longtime St. Cross parishioner Jean Mannings is among leaders of the lecture series’ organizing committee.
The Episcopal Church’s Presiding Bishop, the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, delivered the series’ inaugural lecture on December 6, 2008, during the 113th annual Convention meeting of the Diocese of Los Angeles.
The three sons of Margaret and Richard Parker – Richard, Stephen and David – were in attendance for the inaugural lecture. Bishop J. Jon Bruno of the Diocese of Los Angeles welcomed Richard, an economist and Harvard lecturer, to introduce the Presiding Bishop and the lecture series.
Richard Parker
Lecturer in Public Policy
Senior Fellow, Shorenstein Center
Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government
Richard Parker is Lecturer in Public Policy and Senior Fellow of the Shorenstein Center. An economist by training, he is a graduate of Dartmouth College and Oxford University. He has worked as an economist for the UNDP (United Nations Development Program), as cofounder of Mother Jones Magazine, and as head of his own consulting firm, serving congressional clients, including Senators Kennedy, Glenn, Cranston, and McGovern, among others. Parker has held Marshall, Rockefeller, Danforth, Goldsmith, and Bank of America Fellowships.
His books include: The Myth of the Middle Class, a study of U.S. income distribution; Mixed Signals: The Future of Global Television News; and the forthcoming intellectual biography, John Kenneth Galbraith: His Life, His Politics, His Economics. His articles have appeared in numerous academic anthologies and journals and in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, New Republic, Nation, Harper's, Le Monde, Atlantic Monthly, and International Economy, among others.
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori
“Shalom” – peacemaking defined by the Prophet Isaiah and reiterated by Jesus in Luke’s gospel – is a ministry priority for the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, who took office November 1, 2006 as 26th Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church.
Bishop Jefferts Schori was elected to this office on June 18, 2006 by vote of the 75th General Convention, in Columbus, Ohio. This Convention also set the United Nations Millennium Development Goals as the Episcopal Church’s top mission priority. In her full endorsement of these goals, Bishop Jefferts Schori calls upon Episcopalians and the wider global community to work together for their implementation.
Bishop Jefferts Schori’s career as an oceanographer preceded her studies for the priesthood, to which she was ordained in 1994. She remains an active, instrument-rated pilot – a skill she applied when traveling between the congregations of the Diocese of Nevada, where she was elected bishop in 2000 and ordained to the episcopate February 24, 2001. At the time of her election as bishop of Nevada, she was assistant rector of the Church of the Good Samaritan in Corvallis, Oregon.
Bishop Jefferts Schori, 54, holds a B.S. degree in biology from Stanford University (1974), an M.S. (1977) and Ph.D. (1983) in oceanography from Oregon State University, an M.Div. from Church Divinity School of the Pacific (1994), and an honorary D.D. (2001) also from CDSP.
Bishop Jefferts Schori was born March 26, 1954, in Pensacola, Florida. She grew up in the Seattle area and later moved with her family to New Jersey. Bishop Jefferts Schori and her husband, Richard Miles Schori, a retired theoretical mathematician (topologist), were married in 1979. They have one adult daughter, Katharine Johanna, who is a captain and pilot in the U. S. Air Force.
Bishop Jefferts Schori brings to her ministry emphases on baptismal ministry and adult education. As Presiding Bishop, she serves as chief pastor to the Episcopal Church’s 2.4 million members in 16 countries and 110 dioceses. As Primate, Bishop Jefferts Schori joins in consultation with other principal bishops of the 38 member Provinces of the worldwide Anglican Communion, seeking to make common cause for global good and reconciliation.
