The Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil (Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil) has elected its first woman bishop. This happened 34 years after women were allowed to serve in all three ordained ministries in the church. On 20 January 2018, in Belém, located in Pará, a state in northern Brazil, Rev. Konego Marineza Santos Basoto was elected bishop of the Diocese of the Amazon. The woman will take the place of Bishop Saulo Maurício de Barros, who retired in November last year. This region was one of the first in the Anglican Communion to officially open the episcopate to women, as early as 1983. In 1985, they ordained the first woman as a deacon and pastor.
The newly elected bishop, Marineza Basoto, currently serves as a pastor in the southern part of Brazil, in a congregation of the southern diocese (Meridional) in the city of Cachoeirinha in the state of São Paulo, near Porto Alegre. Before that, she was head of the National Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Porto Alegre. The 46-year-old pastor herself comes from the state of Rio Grande do Sul and is married to Paulo Basoto, with whom she is raising two daughters.
Marineza Basoto already holds several positions of national importance in her region: she is a member of the National Liturgy Commission, which is responsible for the common prayer book, as well as a member of the National Diaconia Commission. This commission works on promoting social responsibility in the region. She is also the coordinator of the “Confelider 2018” conference. This conference will bring together leaders from across the region and will take place from 30 May to 3 June 2018 in Brazil’s capital, Brasília.
In her current diocese, the newly elected bishop Marineza represents the diocese in the national Anglican diaconia and development ministry; she is also a member of the Porto Alegre interfaith dialogue group, as well as a member of the Rio Grande do Sul Ecumenical Forum.
“We are certainly living in a special time with the election of our first woman bishop in our region,” said the Primate of the Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil, Francisco de Assis da Silva.
Bishop Francisco, who was in Africa at the time of the election, described the election as “a breeze blowing over the church that most certainly shows new times and new ways of ministry”.
“The Diocese of the Amazon and the Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil are taking decisive steps on the question of gender equality, and we are very happy. From Ghana I raise my prayers for our region and the elected bishop Marineza and her family.”
Basoto was born in the town of Canguçu, which was a kind of church mission site. Her grandparents were among the founders of the mission, and she felt a calling to ministry early in her life.
In 1991 she moved to the state capital, Porto Alegre, to study theology at the national Anglican seminary, which is now closed, and was ordained a deacon in May 1995 (at the age of 24), receiving ordination as a pastor the following year. Both ordinations took place at the National Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Porto Alegre, where she herself later, in 1999, at the age of 29, became head — as the second woman in the region in such a high ecclesial office and the first in the city of Porto Alegre. After seventeen years of service as head of the cathedral, Marineza moved to her current place of ministry in the São Paulo congregation.
The newly elected bishop Marineza Basoto with the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, when he visited São Paulo in September 2014.
Photo: IEAB (Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil)
“I feel happy and at the same time aware of the kind and scale of commitment to the ministry that I have accepted,” the newly elected bishop Marineza told the Anglican Communion News Service. “I myself have great conviction that the episcopate is a pastoral ministry, an opportunity to serve (diaconia). It is not an office of honour or status.”
In May the Anglican Church of Brazil will mark the 33rd anniversary of the ordination of women. “Our Brazilian church is brave and innovative, allowing women from the very beginning to aspire to the three ordained ministries. Even so, over these nearly 33 years, the church has not had the prophetic courage to elect a woman to episcopal ministry. Now the time has come to tear down this wall.”
“With my election, a new era has begun for greater gender equality. I hope that with it will come even greater equality.”
“I am very well aware that this situation brings uncertainty and fear. Everything that is foreign to us creates insecurity in us. I think that at first there will be doubts and fears about a woman bishop in the country. But at the same time I am convinced that there will also be strong support.”
I believe there will be more positive expectations, in the awareness that this is what happens when women take up positions traditionally held by men. I will take up the office with courage, hope and faith, accepting the consequences and risks of this choice and devoting myself to the work of ministry together with the ministers and laypeople of the Anglican Diocese of the Amazon in this difficult task as a Christian.”
The Diocese of the Amazon is a relatively young diocese; and although the territory covers an enormous area, the congregation is rather small. “The people of the region are very hospitable,” said the elected bishop Marineza. “Culturally, the region is very colourful and diverse. There are many different scents, flavours and natural sights that one can only speak about while actually being there on the ground.
It is also a region where everyone can see inequality. Of course, the life of the diocese has many needs, hopes and concerns; in addition, there are also great pastoral, administrative and financial challenges in order to proclaim and live the gospel as one should and to be the Church of Christ: missionaries who take root in the local culture and are prophetic…
It is important to praise together and to celebrate the Eucharist together, breaking bread and sharing the cup together, persevering in prayer and in relationships grounded in love. I want to strengthen the fellowship among the members of the congregation. I am open to learning together with them about how God’s love is revealed, and to sharing this love and ministry with people, especially those who are suffering, offering the spaces of the diocese as a place of safety, inviting everyone to a place where they can feel they belong.
I see an innovative and inclusive diocese that bears witness to the right to justice and to human dignity, an ecumenical life as a way of affirming the unity we must seek. I will work to create opportunities for capacity building, formation and discipleship for both ministers and laypeople, where each person takes on their role in a shared task.”
Source: Anglican News