About Katharine Jefferts Schori

Now Featured at the Patheos Book Club
Gathering at God's Table
The Meaning of Mission in the Feast of Faith
By Katharine Jefferts Schori

About the Author

Katharine Jefferts Schori was elected Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in June 2006. She serves as chief pastor and primate to the Episcopal Church's members in 16 countries and 110 dioceses.  She joins with other principal bishops of the 38-member Provinces of the worldwide Anglican Communion, seeking a common cause for global good and reconciliation.    

Over the course of her 9-year term, Bishop Jefferts Schori is responsible for initiating and developing policy for the Episcopal Church and speaks on behalf of the church regarding the policies, strategies, and programs authorized by General Convention.  She has been vocal about the Episcopal Church's mission priorities, including the United Nation Millennium Development Goals, issues of domestic poverty, climate change and care for the earth, as well as the ongoing need to contextualize the gospel.  The Presiding Bishop is charged to speak God's word to the church and to the world.

Bishop Jefferts Schori's career as an oceanographer preceded her studies for the priesthood, to which she was ordained in 1994. She holds a B.S. in biology from Stanford University, an M.S. and Ph.D. in oceanography from Oregon State University, an M.Div. from Church Divinity School of the Pacific, and several honorary doctoral degrees.  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 a priest, university lecturer, and hospice chaplain in Oregon.

Bishop Jefferts Schori grew up in the Seattle area and has spent most of her life in the West. Bishop Jefferts Schori and her husband, Richard Miles Schori, a retired mathematician (topologist), were married in 1979. They have one daughter, who is a captain (pilot) in the U.S. Air Force.

Other books by Katharine Jefferts Schori:

The Heartbeat of God: Finding the Sacred in the Middle of Everything
SkyLight Paths Publishing

Gospel in the Global Village: Seeking God's Dream of Shalom
Morehouse Publishing

A Wing and a Prayer: A Message of Faith and Hope
Morehouse Publishing

Endorsements for The Heartbeat of God

"Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, with her elegant, light touch, shows how an authentic Christianity demands a concern for, and an involvement with, thoroughly mundane issues such as ending poverty and hunger, providing health care, and dealing with climate change, gender equality, and crime. In her version of reality, everything is sacred except sin."
—The Rt. Rev. Desmond Tutu

"By meditations on scripture and personal anecdotes, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori calls the Church to love our neighbor as ourselves and gives examples of how to do so."
—John C. Danforth, Episcopal priest; former U.S. senator from Missouri; special envoy for peace in Sudan; U.S. ambassador to the United Nations

"A down to earth, heartfelt exposition of biblical truth for everyday life-from a remarkable, barrier-breaking woman."
—Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, director of religion, Chautauqua Institution; author, Living into Hope: A Call to Spiritual Action for Such a Time as This

"With a sense of proportion informed by hope ...  gives us a great gift: the sound of a voice of calm in the midst of seemingly perpetual storm."
—Jon Meacham, author, American Gospel; winner of the Pulitzer Prize

"Uses a sensitive spiritual stethoscope to detect the 'heartbeat of God' among people crying out for justice.... A wonderful invitation to join Bishop Katharine in a powerful and prayerful twenty-first-century reflection."
–Maureen Fiedler, host of Interfaith Voices (a public radio show); editor, Breaking Through the Stained Glass Ceiling: Women Religious Leaders in Their Own Words

"Bishop Jefferts Schori wrestles-sincerely and fearlessly-with the call of the gospel and with every kind of impediment we have to a vibrant response to that call. Her exploration of the core teachings of Christian texts will challenge and illuminate people far beyond the Episcopal world."
—Andrea Cohen-Kiener, author, Claiming Earth as Common Ground: The Ecological Crisis through the Lens of Faith