Key West, Florida
November 13, 2009
Before I start my address I want to thank Bishop Mary Gray-Reeves for being with us. I know the sacrifice a bishop has to make in order to find time to be away from the diocese. But it is a real blessing to welcome my dear former Archdeacon for Deployment, who is now one of the outstanding bishops of the Church.
I also want to thank the Rt. Rev. Todd McGregor, the area bishop for Tulear, in the Diocese of Antananarivo in Madagascar—and his wife, the always right Rev. Patsy McGregor. We continue with enthusiasm our companion relationship with Madagascar, and next year we hope to send a mission team to learn more of the great work that Todd and Patsy are doing in Tulear.
Many thanks also to Larry Hooper, rector of St. Paul’s, and Dean Don Sullivan, vicar of St. Peter’s, and to all from the Keys Deanery who have worked so hard to welcome us here in Key West for this 40th Convention of the Diocese of Southeast Florida.
Yes, today at this Diocesan Convention we are celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the creation of our Diocese as one of the 110 dioceses of the Episcopal Church. Prior to 1969 we were part of the Diocese of South Florida. In 1969 our General Convention approved the division of that diocese into three dioceses–Southeast, Southwest and Central Florida.
I also would like to point out that we are gathered here today at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, a congregation that was established 177 years ago and is the oldest congregation of this diocese and also among the most ancient congregations of the State of Florida.
We can indeed say with the author of the 12th chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews: “we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses…. therefore let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.”
We are celebrating our 40th year, and we are moving forward.
But as we move forward, let us remember and thank God for the lives of men and women, lay and ordained, who in the past through their sacrifice and obedience to our Lord established our church in this part of the world; men and women who, under leadership of their bishops, were able to endure whatever came their way in the midst of the uncertainty of their times.
We have a debt of gratitude to those who have preceded us, among them Bishop Henry Loutitt, Bishop of South Florida; Bishop James Duncan, first bishop of our diocese; Bishop Calvin Schofield, our second Diocesan Bishop; and Bishop John Said, who served with Bishop Schofield as his Bishop Suffragan.
Let’s not forget their work and the work of many laypersons, priests and deacons who labored together with those bishops and were able to plant our church in this part of Florida.
Today we celebrate 40 years of ministry as the Diocese of Southeast Florida, and now is the time that God has given you and me as ministers of the Church to carry on its mission, which is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.
This Diocesan Convention is my second in Key West, and the 10th Convention that I chair as your Diocesan Bishop. Time flies indeed when you are having fun!
I say all of this to remind you, as we are gathered as a big family, that whatever we do in each of our individual congregations is much greater, and has a bigger impact that blesses the rest of the diocese and the Church, than we can imagine. Each Episcopal congregation of this diocese is interconnected with the rest of the congregations and institutions of Southeast Florida.
Just like the Deanery of the Keys, made up of individual congregations on separate islands that are interconnected by bridges that unite them in one community, we are all interconnected with one another in this diocese.
We are gathered here today, people of God who call ourselves Episcopalians, part of the Anglican Communion. We come from many different places, different theological positions, different colors of skin, different languages, different sexual orientations, different socio-economic classes, different political positions and different worship styles; but regardless of those differences we become one through the power of the Holy Spirit, and through our common belief that Jesus Christ is Lord.
It is he, our Lord Jesus, who is the bridge that interconnects each one of us, regardless of our differences, and it is through him that we can find our unity.
As I reflect back on my years with you as your bishop, I must say that we have lived through very interesting times, and some of those times, we all know, have been quite challenging.
The terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, just one year after my enthronement, was one of those challenges, not only for our country but for the Church itself. The consequences of this major terrorist attack have caused many changes and turmoil in the life of our country and the Church.
General Convention 2003 and the consecration of the Bishop of New Hampshire also caused divisions in our Church, and we need to own that, in order to be reminded that there is always a price to pay when you stand for justice and equality.
In the past The Episcopal Church paid dearly for our stand for justice; we paid for our stand on Civil Rights that led to the loss of many members of our Church, especially in dioceses in the Southern part of the United States.
Another recurring challenge for us in this part of the United States is that we are in the path of the hurricanes. In recent years we have gone through quite a distressing number of hurricanes.
Each hurricane affects the life and the proper functioning of our churches.
Also during my time as your bishop we have faced the avian flu and at present, the swine flu.
And sadly, during these past years the United States has been involved in two wars that seem endless and that have caused many casualties and affected our economy.
Distressing also have been the two collapses of our economy that we have encountered during this past decade. One of them happened after September 11, and the other one during the past year and a half, the effects of which have caused great pain in all of our communities. At present the financial outlook seems to be improving, and our prayers are that unemployment, foreclosures and depression will become soon a thing of the past.
No one could say that we have gone through easy times.
Yes, it has been hard; yes, these crises and challenges have affected all of us; but we have endured and we have persevered with our mission. We can indeed do all things through Christ who strengthens us.
You see, this is the time that God has given us to live, and this is the time that God has set in front of us in which to do our mission. It is up to us to persevere, regardless of what may come.
But let us not lose sight of the fact that all of the above calamities that we have encountered during these past years are nothing new.
Those who lived before us never hesitated to do the mission that God had given them. During the time that God gave them, they experienced two major world wars, plus the Korean and Vietnam wars; they persevered during the worst Wall Street financial collapse of American history in the 1930s and through the major unemployment of those days.
They also had to deal with various strains of influenza, like swine flu, and other pandemics like polio; they lived through horrible, devastating hurricanes that repeatedly damaged their church buildings. They also had to face several conflicts in our church that brought division, as we took a stand against slavery, against discrimination and segregation based on race; when marriage was forbidden between persons of different races who loved each other. Divisions took place due to our acceptance of birth control and our pastoral stand on the remarriage of previously divorced persons, and 33 years ago a major conflict took place due to our approval of the ordination of women to the priesthood and the episcopate.
That was the time that those who preceded us had to face, but now is the time that God has given for us to live. Are we going to respond to the challenges that we are facing and those that may await us in the future like an ostrich that hides its head in the sand and waits until all the danger goes away, or are we going to be like a tiger that when threatened is willing to fight and persevere?
You and I as ministers of the Church have a mission to do as we face the next 40 years. Are we going to face the future with vigor, in order to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ, or do you prefer to wait for the better times that may never come in the future?
Well, let me tell you something: That time in the future is for others to fulfill, others that will come after us, but for you and me this is the time that God has given us to do his mission.
I will never forget what the late Bishop Herb Thompson of Southern Ohio said to me in his sermon the day of my enthronement as your diocesan bishop, September 16, 2000.
Bishop Thompson said that I must never forget the fact that in the end the reality is that I am only the interim bishop between the second and the fourth bishop of this diocese. You see, this is the time that God has given me as the third diocesan bishop of Southeast Florida, and my mission is to continue building upon the work of those that were here before me and to prepare the way and strengthen the church in order that someday the fourth bishop will continue building upon our common work.
In the same manner, most of us here come from churches that are the fruit of the work of a cloud of witnesses that in the past ran with perseverance the race that was set before them by our Lord Christ.
We have received a gift from the labor of others, and it is now our turn to run with perseverance the race that is set before us by Christ.
I give thanks to God that he has given me the strength to serve you and this diocese as the interim bishop between the second and the fourth bishop, but I am also aware that time passes quickly. Therefore, I want to make sure that the years I have ahead as your bishop will be used in a creative way.
I have some clear ideas of how to proceed, but I want us to work together in discovering God’s will for us on how to proceed, and to determine what kind of diocese we want to hand to the fourth bishop when he or she gets here.
I am in the process of preparing four Visioning Days to take place in 2010 in different parts of the diocese. The dates and venues will be announced before the end of this year, and anyone in the diocese will be welcome to participate in whichever one of the gatherings is most convenient.
What I am proposing is for us to concentrate on what we believe that God is calling us to do during this time, yours and mine, as interim ministers of this diocese, especially during the immediate future, the years from 2011 until 2015.
I am aware that some of this visioning has already been taking place.
We know that the creativity of many in this diocese has allowed us to develop regional ministries, such as the shared ministry of All Saints, Ft. Lauderdale, with the Church of the Intercession and El Centro Episcopal Todos Los Santos.
In the Deanery of South Palm Beach we laud the cooperation of two Boca Raton congregations, St. Gregory’s and the Chapel of St. Andrew. In the North Palm Beach Deanery, St. Mark’s, Palm Beach Gardens, is sharing ministry with St. George’s, Riviera Beach.
I know there are other collaborative ministries that are developing—these are only a few examples of the creative work happening in our diocese.
Let me also share with you an initiative that has taken a long time to get here. I spoke of it at my very first diocesan gathering, called First Step, at St. Andrew’s School in Boca early in 2001. There I talked about my desire to start a ministry among the many Brazilians that live in our diocese.
I don’t know if you know that the three towns in the United States with the largest populations of Brazilians are found in our diocese, more specifically in and around Pompano Beach. We have been working with Fr. Tim Thomas and Dean Bernie Pecaro, both rectors of churches in the Pompano Beach area, in order to coordinate the beginning of this ministry. We now have a Portuguese- speaking person to start this ministry. He is the Rev. Jose de Jesus Sanchez, who is here with his wife Glenda. I ask your prayers for the success of this ministry.
I also want to commend the ministry that has taken place in several Hispanic congregations of our diocese. Todos Los Santos, Miami, this past year became a self-supporting parish. In addition to that, the growth of places like Holy Cross, Miami, and Holy Comforter, Miami, are exciting as they, too, move closer to self-supporting parish status.
It is good to share with you the news that in addition to Todos Los Santos, two other churches, All Souls’, Miami Beach, and All Saints’, Jensen Beach, have become self-supporting parishes.
I also would like to mention the strengthening and revitalization of our Cursillo Movement. I want to thank many that have made this possible, and in particular I want to thank Dede Lewis for her effort and support to make this possible.
I am also happy to announce that with the approval of Bishop Alfred Reid we are in the process of exporting the Cursillo Movement to the Diocese of Jamaica, with the cooperation of the Diocese of the Bahamas and Turk and Caicos, which also has a strong Cursillo Movement. This is indeed an exciting day.
And now let me say something about our Duncan Center. I am very happy to share with you the good news that it continues in the black and is flourishing indeed. The occupancy keeps increasing and our Duncan Center has become a vital part of our ministry. We are now in the process of starting a new effort to raise the funds for a swimming pool and gardens.
In the past you named the Duncan Center to honor our first Diocesan Bishop James L. Duncan; you also named the chapel for Calvin O. Schofield, Jr., to honor our second Diocesan Bishop. Well, I don’t want to be left out: I would like us to have a pool and name it the TGIF Swimming Pool and TGIF stands for: “Thank God it’s Frade.” At the exhibit hall next to the church you will find a model of the proposed TGIF Pool and Gardens, so please make an effort to go and see the proposed project that will make the Duncan Center more attractive and marketable.
I also want to invite you to a birthday party next year; on April 18 we will celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Duncan Center.
And while you have your Blackberries, iPhones and pencils out, put on your calendar another event that will take place March 12 and 13 at the Duncan Center: another in our series of opportunities for growth and learning that have been held annually since that “First Step” in 2001—the Bishop’s Spring Conference.
I am happy to announce that our conference speaker next March will be Father Matthew Moretz of Rye, New York. If you don’t know who he is, I urge you to move into the 21st Century and find out how you can do ministry through the internet, as well as by using new ways of communicating like YouTube.com. “Father Matthew Presents” is considered among the most popular Christian sites of the Web. Tomorrow we will be showing a sample of his work. This will be an extraordinary opportunity to experience the X & Y Generation of the 21st Century.
I also want to announce that I will be naming the Rev. Dr. Carlos Sandoval as Canon for Health. As I mentioned earlier, we have been facing one pandemic after another—HIV/AIDS, avian flu and now the “swine flu,” H1N1. Today’s issue of USA Today reported that swine flu has swept thorugh about 22 million Americans from April through October of this year, killing an estimated 3,900 people, 540 of them children, according to the Center for Disease Control.
Dr. Sandoval is a medical doctor and a psychiatrist, as well as a priest of our diocese, and we will work with him to make sure that we protect ourselves from illness during these days ahead of us.
I would be remiss if I did not mention an organization in our diocese that has been working very hard to help the needy in our midst. I am referring to Episcopal Charities of Southeast Florida, which under the guidance of its new director, the Rev. Donna Dambrot, and a very dynamic board, has brought new energy to its ministries in recent months. I thank Episcopal Charities for the initiative asking delegates to bring to convention a donation of food for those in need in the Keys.
And now I will ask the Venerable Doctor Bryan Hobbs, senior archdeacon of our diocese and in charge of Congregational Development, to share with you other initiatives that we are undertaking. Then he will introduce Archdeacon Bruttell to tell you about some of the transitions that have taken place in our congregations and those still to be completed.
I want to thank the archdeacons for sharing with you the other work that we do. Believe me, the three archdeacons work very hard to carry out our mission to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.
We rejoice in the ongoing recovery of Archdeacon Bazin from surgery on his vocal cords, and are glad to have him here with us, although he is still unable to speak. He has provided for us a written report on his ministries as Archdeacon for Immigration and Social Justice.
Before I end, allow me to make some comments about other important issues.
First let me say to you that during this coming triennium we will be involved in discussing the Anglican Covenant that eventually will be presented to the Anglican Communion. Some have already come out to support the Covenant and others to attack it. Well, the proposed Covenant is not out yet and we will wait to have the complete draft in our hands in order to study and analyze it after it comes out.
I also want to mention something that has been in the news recently in reference to the invitation of the Pope in Rome for Anglicans to join their church. One of the newspapers of Miami came out with a headline that read: “Stampede of Anglicans and Episcopalians to join the Catholic Church.”
Well, the rumor of our demise has been greatly exaggerated. The reports from around the world where our Communion has flourished show that even the most conservative groups have declined the invitation. As I check around other dioceses the report shows a lack of enthusiasm to the invitation.
But let me say this, too, not to brag, but because it needs to be said: The number of Roman Catholics, lay and ordained, that are received into our church continues increasing. Our doors will remain open to those who want to come to our church.
My wife, Diana, and I continually give thanks for all the support and love that you have shown us. We especially want to thank the several congregations that have been helping a project that is very dear to our hearts: Our Little Roses, in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, which Diana founded as a home and school for abandoned, abused and orphaned girls. There is an exhibit about this ministry in the parish hall, which I urge you to visit.
Thank you, and may God bless you.
+Leo Frade