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May

22

The Right Reverend Paul Moore


Why on Earth, you may wonder, is Jill writing about the Right Reverend Paul Moore?

First and foremost, because I caught a few minutes of Diane Rehm this morning, when his eldest daughter, Honor, was on. Honor’s latest book was just released and is titled The Bishop’s Daughter: A Memoir:

Paul Moore’s vocation as an Episcopal priest took him—with his wife Jenny and a family that grew to nine children—from robber-baron wealth to work among the urban poor of postwar America, prominence as an activist bishop in Washington during the Johnson years, leadership in the civil rights and peace movements, and two decades as the bishop of New York. The Bishop’s Daughter is a daughter’s story of that complex, visionary man: a chronicle of her turbulent relationship with a father who struggled privately with his sexuality while she openly explored hers, and a searching account of the consequences of sexual secrets [Reverend Moore was bisexual]. With a depth of questioning that recalls James Carroll’s An American Requiem, this memoir engages the reader in the great issues of American life: war, race, family, sexuality, and faith. 22 photographs.

Honor’s writing is beautiful, as done here in a New Yorker piece about her father.

So, umm, why would Jill – whom we all know and love to be Jewish, have something to say about these people or this book?

Well, as it just so happens, as I’ve mentioned a few times, I worked in the Yale Development Office from 1985-1988.  And my first job in that office was in Major Gifts Research.  There were four of us in Major Gifts Research, and we used to compile and compose very detailed biographical, historical, personal and financial work-ups of potential donors and past donors to whom the program directors might return for, you know, more donations.

The Right Reverend Paul Moore and his family was one of my assignments.

I remember basically nothing from all the work I must have done to complete his portfolio.  But what stood out for me were these things:

The title of “Right Reverend.”*  Sure, I’d gone to a Catholic university and my best friends really were Episcopal, Unitarian and Catholic, but I didn’t know a reverend from a minister from a priest.  I’m not sure I do now either.

So I remember very well how, when I got handed this assignment, I knew I was at Yale, where there are lots and lots of Protestants.  But I didn’t really know how to ask about what a “right reverend” was.  And, when I did finally get up the guts to ask – you know what? No one could really explain it to me.  I actually thought that Father Moore was the Very Right Reverend – but I’m not sure why.

I also remember reading about all his children, some of whom I believe may have actually been at Yale at that time or about to be at Yale.  And I remember the names – like Honor – being very foreign to me.  I remember they were in New York – or at least he was in New York.

And that’s about all I remember.   And I haven’t thought of Father Moore much in the last 23 years.

Until today. I don’t know that I will read the book that Honor has written, but if it’s anywhere near as well written as the New Yorker piece, it would certainly be worth the time just for the writing alone.  The New York Times reviews it here.

*From this entry for the word “Reverend” in Wikipedia, under “Anglican Churches”:  “Abbesses, abbots and bishops are styled as “the Right Reverend”"

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 10:31 pm May 22nd, 2008 in Gender, Religion 

Comments

One Response to “The Right Reverend Paul Moore”

  1. 1 Paul on May 22nd, 2008 11:09 pm

    Apropos of very little, my late father hated to be called “Reverend” … he prefered “Pastor”. He said that Reverend unnecessarily elevated the person leading the church.

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