Glendale Cleric Elected Episcopal Bishop of Dallas

The Rev. James M. Stanton, rector of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church of Glendale, has been elected bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas, Tex.

Stanton, 46, who supports the ordination of women to the priesthood and holds to traditional church teaching against homosexual marriages and the ordination of gays, is expected to be consecrated to the episcopacy by March. He will be the fifth bishop of the diocese, which has 80 churches and missions and 26,000 communicants.

The Episcopal Church is part of the 70-million member worldwide Anglican Communion whose spiritual head is the Archbishop of Canterbury of the Church of England. There are about 2.5 million Episcopalians in the United States.

Under the church’s government, a bishop must be elected by a majority vote among both the laity and the clergy. Stanton won on the first vote cast by the laity in Dallas last weekend. But it took 15 ballots before a two-thirds vote was mustered in the clergy order. There were four finalists.

Stanton will succeed the Rt. Rev. Donis Dean Patterson, the retiring bishop of Dallas. Stanton and his wife, Diane, have two children, Jennifer, 21, and Justin, 18. He has been rector at St. Mark’s since May, 1987.