'People person' Sean Rowe ready for 'big undertaking' as Episcopal presiding bishop

At only 49 years old, the Right Rev. Sean Rowe has already spent 17 years as an Episcopal bishop in northwestern Pennsylvania.

He believes it's less his still relatively youthful age and more the "experience given to me at a young age to be a bishop of the church" that will help him lead the more than 1.4 million members of the denomination as its next presiding bishop.

Rowe, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania, was elected Wednesday as the Episcopal Church's 28th presiding bishop and will be the youngest person to hold that position so far. He will begin his nine-year term on Nov. 1, replacing Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, who is 71.

Rowe said the "privilege of being elected (the northwestern Pennsylvania bishop) at age 32" helped him to gain experience he'll need for the top job. So did working in the Erie-based diocese, which covers 13 counties.

Northwestern Pennsylvania's smaller congregations represent the broader base of the Episcopal Church, Rowe told the Erie Times-News in a telephone interview Thursday. He said he's been in a diocese with moderate resources that was still able to experiment.

"One thing I've learned in northwestern Pennsylvania is resilience," Rowe said.

He also serves as bishop provisional of the Episcopal Diocese of Western New York, based in Tonawanda, as part of a first-of-its-kind experiment in the Episcopal Church to share a bishop and staff. Combined, the two dioceses have nearly 90 congregations.

'Big undertaking'

The Rev. Richard Rowe believes Sean Rowe will do a good job leading the Episcopal Church but admits to some bias. Sean Rowe has not only been Richard Rowe's local bishop for 17 years but is also his son.

"We're pleased for him," Richard Rowe said, speaking for himself and his wife, Patricia Rowe. They also have a daughter. "It's a big undertaking. It's a huge responsibility."

Replacing Michael Curry: Bishop Sean Rowe of Episcopal Diocese of Northwestern Pa. elected to lead Episcopal Church

But the senior Rowe said "complex" and "huge" don't bother his son, who has a broad background.

An Eagle Scout, the younger Rowe was elected class president in high school and won a four-year term on the Franklin Area School Board in 2003. He was elected bishop of northwestern Pennsylvania on the first ballot.

Three years later, Sean Rowe made public four claims of sexual abuse against a former bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania, apologized for the abuse and asked other victims to contact him.

"We are not going forward with this because we are being threatened with litigation," Sean Rowe told the Erie Times-News in 2010. "We are going forward with this because I believe it's the right thing to do."

He also said then that he was demonstrating that such abuse would no longer be covered up here.

"In this diocese, there will not be secrets about this kind of activity," he said.

In 2012, Sean Rowe announced that he would allow clergy in the northwestern Pennsylvania diocese to bless the unions of same-sex couples.

"I support blessing same-sex unions, but some of my faithful fellow Episcopalians do not," Sean Rowe said in a statement at the time. "The Episcopal Church in northwestern Pennsylvania is a place where people of good conscience can disagree charitably about such matters. We respect and love each other, and we are united in the hope and healing of Jesus Christ."

Sean Rowe said this month that some of the most practical people he's ever worked with are in northwestern Pennsylvania. He thanked them for their support.

'People person'

"I think he's always been a people person," said Richard Rowe, who is retired but still provides pastoral care at St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Lawrence Park Township.

Richard Rowe became an Episcopal priest a couple years after his son. Sean Rowe said he grew up in the Methodist Church and was introduced to the Episcopal Church while at Grove City College, where he was a history major with a religion minor.

"The Episcopal Church and the United Methodist Church are distant cousins," he said, adding that they have a good relationship and both serve the same God.

In a 2007 interview with the Erie Times-News, Constance Bailey also said Sean Rowe was a "people person" and said he was "definitely marked by God."

Bailey, then 75, was a member of St. John's Episcopal Church in Franklin, where Rowe has been rector for seven years before becoming a bishop.

"He's a cut above most of us," Bailey told the Erie Times-News. In addition to being a member of his church, she had served with Rowe on the Franklin Area School Board for nearly four years. "There's just an insight, an ability to understand people, compassion, the things so many of us struggle with," she said of him.

When Bailey died in 2016, it was Sean Rowe and Richard Rowe who officiated at her funeral.

Looking ahead

Sean Rowe was selected on the first ballot by his fellow bishops and received an overwhelming majority of votes from priests and lay people. He said he did vote for himself because he had discerned about being presiding bishop and was prepared to offer himself and do so fully.

Because of that, some planning for his departure has already been done in his Pennsylvania and New York dioceses. He said in a letter to members of the dioceses that their Standing Committees "began developing a draft plan for this transition shortly after I was named to the slate of nominees for presiding bishop and are prepared for the change ahead."

From April: Erie Bishop Sean Rowe named 1 of 4 nominees for presiding bishop of Episcopal Church

Sean Rowe said there isn't yet a timeline for replacing him when he takes on his new role Nov. 1.

"We have some time to work on that," he said.

But even though he'll become presiding bishop of the Manhattan-based Episcopal Church, Sean Rowe won't completely leave Erie County for a couple years. He said he'll likely divide his time between here and New York City while his 11-year-old daughter, Lauren Rowe, completes grade school. His wife, Carly Rowe, a Christian educator, will continue to work for the northwestern Pennsylvania diocese. Both were with him in Louisville for the Episcopal Church's General Convention and were excited by his selection as presiding bishop.

The family was headed home over the weekend. Sean Rowe said there won't be an immediate celebration of his election but that he expects to begin saying his goodbyes later in the summer.

Dana Massing can be reached at dmassing@timesnews.com.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: New Episcopal presiding bishop Sean Rowe of Erie PA ready to lead