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Griswold, McAlpen, Swing, Vergara receive honorary degrees from CDSP
"In this present season in the life of the Church a deep and disciplined and prayerful appropriation of our baptismal identity is essential if our various ministries are to be revelatory for Christ's own ministry" of reconciliation, Griswold said during his sermon for the Episcopal seminary's graduation Eucharist.
Griswold; Canon Holly McAlpen, missioner of the Episcopal Diocese of California; recently retired California Bishop William Swing and the Rev. Dr. Winfred Bagao Vergara, the Episcopal Church's director of ethnic congregational development and Asian American missioner, all received honorary degrees May 18 from CDSP, the Episcopal seminary in Berkeley, California.
CDSP conferred the degrees during its annual commencement, which is held in the context of a celebration of Holy Eucharist outdoors in the St. Margaret's Courtyard on the CDSP campus. The seminary graduated 34 students in five degree and two certificate programs.
Griswold told the graduates and the rest of the congregation that Christ's ability to remain true to the work that God had given him came from his baptismal experience.
"What descended upon Jesus as he rose up from the waters of the Jordon was not an agenda from on high, but an overwhelming sense of being deeply loved, favored and rejoiced in," Griswold said.
He suggested that this baptismal sense of divine love can help people resist a hardness of heart "that can overtake us in the midst of ministry when an office or a responsibility to which we are called becomes a possession rather than a gift."
Griswold said that idolatrous possession of such "golden calves" can insulate people from the "paschal dynamic" of dying and rising that life and ministry set before them. When such insulation happens, ministers become "technicians of the sacred," he said. Griswold recalled hearing that phrase from a Benedictine abbot who guided him during his early years as a priest. The abbot warned him that such technicians can perform the rituals and say the right words but remain impermeable to "the true force of their personal implications."
However, he said, to embrace one's baptismal identity of having an existence and potentialities with which God is well-pleased is to embrace the freedom that comes from the Holy Spirit.
"The freedom to embrace Christ's work of reconciliation in all its wide-ranging complexity; freedom to discern the motions of the Spirit in unexpected places; freedom to allow the Spirit to form Christ in us and in others in ways that exceed or contradict what we might ask or imagine," Griswold explained.
Elected the 25th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church at the 1997 General Convention, Griswold served until November 2006. A graduate of Harvard and Oxford, he spent 20 years in parish ministry prior to his election as bishop of the Diocese of Chicago, where he served with distinction for ten years.
"During his term as Presiding Bishop and Primate, Frank demonstrated gifts for leadership that were nourished by his deep and authentic spirituality. He continues to inspire us today with his wisdom, discernment, and compassion," said Donn F. Morgan, president and dean of CDSP.
In the citation in the graduation's order of service, the seminary noted that "during a tumultuous time in the Church, Griswold was steadfast in his commitment to reconciliation. While many were clamoring for simplistic answers, he recognized the complexity of core issues, emphasizing that Christians must listen to each other with charity and grace."
McAlpen has served on the staff of the Diocese of California since 1985. She co-founded the National Episcopal AIDS Coalition and served as president. McAlpen became canon missioner of the Diocese of California in 1999, providing leadership to 22 mission congregations and specialized ministries. She was instrumental in designing wider church initiatives including Start Up/Start Over, Upward Bound, and CREDO. In November 2006, McAlpen was appointed ethnic and multicultural missioner for the Diocese of California.
She has served as a deputy or alternative delegate to General Convention since 1991. She chairs the funding section of the Joint Standing Committee on Program, Budget, and Finance.
She graduated from Iowa Wesleyan College and received a Master of Social Work degree from San Jose State University.
"CDSP is pleased to honor Holly for her exemplary service, outstanding initiative, and abiding pastoral care within the church and far beyond its doors," Morgan said.
Swing served as the seventh bishop of the Diocese of California from 1979 to 2006. He served for 20 years on the board of the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) and chaired the Standing Committee on Health. Swing also created the United Religions Initiative (URI), a nonprofit organization bringing together people of diverse faiths from all sectors of society in cooperation for peace and justice for all. URI has interfaith projects in more than 65 countries.
In the Diocese of California, Swing expanded Episcopal Charities, a network of social service partner agencies that has grown to serve more than 40,000 disadvantaged people each year. His CDSP citation notes that his ministry has been marked by advocacy for people on the margins of society, and by his work promoting interfaith cooperation.
"For his work as an advocate, visionary, mentor, and friend, CDSP is pleased to award Bishop Swing this honorary degree," said Morgan.
Vergara is the author of six books and has written extensively on issues of mission and ministry, celebrating diversity while affirming the importance of both tradition and context. A native of the Philippines, where he was ordained a priest in the Philippine Independent Church, he holds degrees from Trinity College and St. Andrew's Seminary in Manila, and a Master's degree from the University of the Philippines. He received a Doctorate in Ministry from San Francisco Theological Seminary.
Vergara served as a parish priest in three countries, and was founding Vicar of Holy Child Episcopal Church, in San Jose, California. He has been actively involved in theological education, collaborating regularly with CDSP's Center for Anglican Learning and Leadership (CALL).
"His ministry is itself a celebration of the blessings that many cultures bring to the church and our world today," said Morgan.
While he was at CDSP, Vergara met with the Rev. Dr. David Gortner and staff of CDSP's Center for Anglican Learning and Leadership to complete plans for the first Asia-America Theological Exchange Forum set for October 22-25 at CDSP.
The forum will feature two leading theologians (one female and one male) from China, Japan and Korea. Their presentation will be on the theme of the Church as an agent of reconciliation and will explore how their churches do theology of reconciliation in the context of China's socialist society, in the context of Japan where Christianity is a minority religion and in the context of Korea's division between north and south. American theologians will respond to their presentations and all the work will later be published.
CDSP, established in 1893, is a founding member of the Graduate Theological Union (GTU), an ecumenical and interfaith consortium based in Berkeley.
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