Cuba's first woman Episcopal bishop ordained

Cuba's first woman Episcopal bishop ordained
Published on Monday, June 11, 2007
By Anthony Boadle

HAVANA, Cuba (Reuters): The Episcopal Church broke new ground in Cuba
on Sunday by ordaining its first woman bishop in the developing world at
a ceremony that mixed incense with rhythmic Caribbean music.

The Rev. Nerva Cot said she will bring a feminine touch to leadership of
her church's small but growing congregation in communist Cuba, where
religious worship was freed a decade ago.

A dozen bishops from North, Central and South America and Europe
attended the consecration of Cot and Ulises Aguero as suffragan, or
auxiliary, bishops at Havana's Episcopal Cathedral of the Holy Trinity.
The Cuban church is part of the Worldwide Anglican Communion.

"This is an important date for the Anglican Communion because there are
so few women bishops among us, only 11," said Canada's Archbishop Andrew
Hutchison, who headed the ceremony.

"There is a vitality and a deep enthusiasm in Cuba that is an important
gift to a church that has too often been very conservative," Hutchison
told reporters.

Christian Cubans are overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, and the Episcopal
Church has only 5,000 baptized followers in the country.

Cot, who favors allowing gays to become priests, said she hopes her role
will encourage other Latin American countries to broaden diversity in
the Episcopal Church.

Gays "are children of God too. We should respect them and consider
them," Cot said.

The Worldwide Anglican Communion has been deeply divided since 2003 when
the US Episcopal Church, its 2.4 million-member US branch, consecrated
the first openly gay bishop in more than 450 years of Anglican church
history.

In a sign of religious tolerance in Cuba, the ruling Communist Party was
represented at Sunday's ceremony in the front row pew by its official in
charge of religious affairs, Caridad Diego.

Cuba changed its constitution and officially ceased to be an atheist
state in 1992, allowing religious worship even among members of the
Communist Party.

The Episcopal faith was brought to Cuba by American missionaries in the
19th century. Cuba was a diocese of the US church until 1967, when
hostility between the Cuban and US governments caused a break, and is
now affiliated with Canada's Anglican Church.

Cot, 69, joined a seminary in the town of Matanzas at the age of 18
thinking she would become a missionary.

Now as auxiliary bishop for the western half of Cuba, she says being a
woman will help her in reconciling Cuba after a "period of polarization"
when religious faith was persecuted.

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