A controversial Episcopal seminary dean is stepping down following several years of friction with faculty and disagreement about the future of the school.
Dean Katherine Hancock Ragsdale announced her decision not to continue as dean and president of Episcopal Divinity School in an e-mail this morning.
“I write to tell you that I have informed EDS’s board of trustees of my intent not to request a renewal of my contract when it expires at the end of June 2015. Further, I have asked them, if possible, to expedite the process of naming a successor so that I may explore new opportunities,” Ragsdale wrote. “Of course I will do everything I can to insure a smooth transition.”
Ragsdale’s announcement was immediately followed by a statement from the seminary’s board.
“President Ragsdale undertook a deep and real challenge when she began her tenure at the helm of EDS, including arriving at a difficult time in the wake of the sale of iconic property to secure the institution’s financial future, and during a time of challenge in the broader field of theological education,” the board wrote. “With this leadership transition, we ask all members of our community to offer their gracious prayers to our departing President and to contribute to a welcoming and prayerful community for our next leaders.”
Ragsdale’s infamous rallying cry “abortion is a blessing” declared in front of a Birmingham, Alabama abortion clinic in 2007, raised her profile beyond Episcopal Church circles and earned her the nickname “The High Priestess of Abortion” by conservative detractors for her enthusiastic backing of unrestricted abortion rights.
Ragsdale has served on the board of NARAL Pro-Choice America and as past chair of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC), a group founded to provide religious cover for abortion-on-demand and which counts the Episcopal Church among its affiliates.
Monday’s announcement follows two especially rocky years at EDS in which Ragsdale faced a cancelled governance assessment project in which faculty protested that they were shut out of planning. In 2013, Ragsdale was given a vote of “no confidence” by faculty, the kind of action that she waved off as “a dime a dozen.”
“It’s just a way of doing business, especially for places that are facing the need to potentially make significant change,” Ragsdale asserted in an interview with The Living Church. “It goes with the territory.”
The Cambridge, Massachusetts seminary sold property worth over $33 million to neighboring Lesley University just before Ragsdale’s term in office in an effort to pay off outstanding debt and regain the school’s financial footing. According to The Living Church, EDS draws 7 percent from its $66 million endowment to cover operating costs; 5 percent or less would be considered sustainable.
Ragsdale became president of Episcopal Divinity School in 2009, one of the Episcopal Church’s most liberal of 10 accredited seminaries. The seminary’s board describes EDS as “leaders in educational programs that are enlivened by theologies of liberation, especially the many voices of feminist, congregational, ecumenical, and global studies.”
Ragsdale is only the second ever female Episcopal seminary chief and the first professed homosexual one. She is also the former director of Massachusetts-based Political Research Associates, a watchdog of conservatism in America.
In 2011, EDS issued an 800-word press release acclaiming the “historic” wedding of Ragsdale and her partner, The Rev. Mally Lloyd, Canon to the Ordinary in the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts. Ragsdale and Lloyd were married in a ceremony at St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral in Boston by the late Bishop Thomas Shaw in the presence of 400 family and friends.
The developments at EDS come as similar turmoil at the Episcopal Church’s General Theological Seminary (GTS) in New York appears to be quieting down. Dean Kurt Dunkle of GTS faced opposition from a majority of faculty whose “resignations” were accepted by the GTS board despite not being offered. Eight of the nine dismissed faculty were later “provisionally” reinstated.
Update: [02/03/2015] EDS Chair Winnie Varghese has written about the search for an Interim President and Dean to serve an eighteen-month period beginning March 2015. Among the qualifications listed is for an applicant “who can ‘hit the ground running,’ to increase enrollment and institutional development during this time of transition.”
Update: [03/27/2015] EDS Board of Trustees Chair James A. Kowalski announced that The Rev. Francis Fornaro has been named Interim President and Dean. Fornaro is a 1996 graduate of the seminary and has served as adjunct faculty there.
Comment by DD on January 5, 2015 at 2:37 pm
I must admit, there is a certain pleasure in seeing leftists devouring their own. Two very liberal seminaries with very liberal presidents, you’d think they all be doing group hugs on an hourly basis.
No sympathy from me for this woman – nor for any denomination that would appoint a woman to an office because she is a pro-abortion lesbian. Keep watching the numbers, this denomination is committing suicide, and they don’t even seem to care. When you favor sexual politics over faith, you not only lose spiritually but demographically as well.
Comment by Greg on January 5, 2015 at 8:40 pm
The good Reverend is looking to get out of her contract early? She must have gotten a call from the Hillary 2016 campaign. She can be to Hil what Al Sharpton is to O.
Comment by Valerie Hurst on January 5, 2015 at 8:43 pm
The Wikipedia article on the seminary states that it was the result of a 1974 merger of two Episcopal seminaries that were both on the verge of bankruptcy. It is curious that a church that has made such an effort to reach out to the secular culture does not seem to make any converts, nor even retain its members.
Comment by Joe Laughon on January 28, 2015 at 1:27 pm
Under KJS, they’d rather spend those millions that could be used doing evangelization on suing their former parishoners and adopting a scorched earth policy.
Comment by ve6 on January 6, 2015 at 12:08 pm
A lesbian who fanatically pushes abortion? Dr Freud, your ship has come in!
Comment by Greg Paley on January 6, 2015 at 10:02 pm
By all means, please click on the link for her “abortion is a blessing” statement in Birmingham. It is blood-chilling, but should be required reading if you wish to understand the religious left.
Comment by Mike Ward on January 7, 2015 at 7:40 pm
She calls it a blessing about ten times. This part is the most chilling:
“And when a woman becomes pregnant within a loving, supportive, respectful relationship; has every option open to her; decides she does not wish to bear a child; and has access to a safe, affordable abortion – there is not a tragedy in sight — only blessing. The ability to enjoy God’s good gift of sexuality without compromising one’s education, life’s work, or ability to put to use God’s gifts and call is simply blessing.”
Comment by MarcoPolo on January 10, 2015 at 8:47 am
Pregnancy is a condition that shouldn’t be considered a mandatory life sentence, just for having sex.
It is a personal choice, ya know?!
Whether you have sex for procreation, or for sport, the options for continuing your life should always be your own personal choice!
If it’s not YOUR body, then don’t obstruct others from exercising their full rights and liberties.
Comment by ken on January 11, 2015 at 8:13 pm
Unless the woman was raped, she already made her choice. Sexual intercourse often results in pregnancy. Are women as stupid about these matters as you seem to think?
Comment by MarcoPolo on January 12, 2015 at 8:57 am
Well at least you (ken) allow for abortion in cases of rape!
But seriously, sexual intercourse does pose a myriad of risks, and each participant must guard against those risks, responsibly.
There needn’t be judgement about the intellectual acuity of genders here. Men are just as liable for their actions, as women.
Comment by tpaine1 on January 7, 2015 at 1:58 pm
In addition to stealing property from fellow Christians, Ragsdale is “the face” of today’s Episcopal Church. What am I saying!! Clearly, “Episcopal” and “Christian” is an oxymoron.
Comment by workingmansdem on January 7, 2015 at 8:19 pm
The Episcopal Church continues to rearrange its deck chairs. Just a mildly interesting curiosity on a distant horizon to society at large.
Comment by Brian Bowen on January 8, 2015 at 5:05 pm
Pardon my bluntness, but this woman is truly and deeply reprehensible. I’ve met liberals who seem sincere when they call abortion a “tragic choice,” but from that to “blessing” is a huge leap. I’m with old Dante, I think there will be lots of clergy in hell. Granted, no Christian is perfect, but it’s one thing to commit a sin, quite another to tell people that the sin is in fact a “blessing” from God. Apparently her god is Moloch, not the Maker of heaven and earth.
Comment by Claus von Stauffenberg on January 9, 2015 at 8:12 pm
Ragsdale is classified as “counterfeit clergy” by her direct opposition to the Scriptures – what she has sworn to uphold and serve God. It is evidenced by her enthusiastic backing of unrestricted abortion rights and her rallying cry of “abortion is a blessing”.
She has duly earned her title as “The High Priestess of Abortion”. The white collar she wears should rightly be a millstone of which Jesus speaks of in Matthew 18:6 “”If anyone causes one of these little ones–those who believe in Me–to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”
The implications are clear. The deliberate murder of a living soul is not commensurate with the mission of Jesus Christ, the world’s Savior from sin and damnation.
Other than to save a life, abortion is a tool of Satan – the greatest delight of Satan in His efforts to destroy the “crown of God’s creation” … the eternal soul of mankind.
Comment by m141934a on January 11, 2015 at 3:00 pm
The a episcopal church has definitely lost its way.i love the liturgy and the music, but the church is spiritually and theologically dead.
Comment by YankInSlough on January 12, 2015 at 3:35 am
I’m a very conservative Anglican who has ended up on the vestry of a very liberal parish. I am often on the losing side on votes at vestry and at the diocesan level. However, I love my parish. We are healthy, multigenerational, bursting with little kids, and thriving. Pledges are up. Membership is up. This is because the folks here genuinely love and care for each other. This, not doctrine, is what counts.
Do not count the Anglicans out. The leftists are beginning to realize that they do not have all the answers. Common sense and Scripture are slowly re-asserting themselves. Something new is starting.
Comment by Manuel Gonzalez on January 12, 2015 at 10:56 am
She may wear the label of “Christian,” but in fact her religion is Selfism, the default religion of feminists, lesbian feminists in particular. In that religion, abortion is a sacrament. The Supreme Self has the power to destroy human life. Christians should recoil in horror from this religion.
Comment by Andrew on January 15, 2015 at 6:32 pm
Back in the 1970s, the pro-abortion crowd used the slogan, “If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.” That wasn’t exactly a compliment to men. Amazing that some women regard it as progress that women can be as sexually irresponsible and as callous toward life as men were assumed to be.
Comment by Salvatore Anthony Luiso on February 8, 2015 at 9:39 pm
I have told a Christian friend of mine who was formerly an Episcopalian
about this blogpost. An admirer of C.S. Lewis and John Stott, she had
long been concerned about the theological straying in the Anglican
Communion. Eventually she believed she should leave it, and has since
joined another denomination that has an appreciation for the not only
*vital*, but *essential*, importance of Biblical doctrine–and which
also recognizes, and works against, the evil of abortion.
After she read this article about Katherine Hancock Ragsdale, she told me: “She [Ragsdale] and others like her so need our prayers [for
salvation].”
I agree. Consequently, I have prayed for her. May the Lord have mercy on her, and enlighten her with His Holy Spirit through the Scriptures.
“For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived,
serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful,
and hating one another.
But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared,
Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his
mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the
Holy Ghost;
Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour;
That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
–Titus 3:3-7
Comment by Kate1016 on August 1, 2015 at 7:25 pm
This “thing” is one of the MANY reasons why I left the Episcopal Church.
Comment by Stephen Finsel on September 13, 2019 at 8:03 pm
My good friend was an Episcopal priest, great guy and he really loved his work and the church. He isn’t around anymore (RIP Doug) but I am sure he would never accept this woman as a minister of the church. What is wrong with this woman and her still being allowed to continue? I am a Catholic and pray for the aborted babies every day. Alexander King, former satanic wizard and now a Catholic, speaks about the “sacrifice” of abortion as being for satan, how can this woman promote this sacrifice? We are living in a world where death is acceptable, and alternate sexuality is promoted by many. God help us, and i will continue to pray for all that need it, especially this “woman.” God save us all!