At this hour, final preparations are underway on the grounds of the historic St. John's Cathedral for the Anglican Church's biggest celebration in over a decade.
As you may know by now, the church has a new leader and tomorrow morning, Canon Phillip Wright will officially become the Right Reverend Phillip Wright. Hundreds, if not thousands, of the Anglican Church's faithful are expected to attend the two-hour ceremony. The ordination will be led by the Archbishop of the West Indies, the Most Reverend Drexel Gomez. Archbishop Gomez also helped to pick Canon Wright as the new bishop and today, for the first time, we learnt why the 38 year old Canon was chosen. Drexel told us that Canon Wright was simply the best choice.
Most Rev. Drexel Gomez, ArchBishop of the West Indies
"What we looked for was years of ordination, theological formation, experience within the province, in terms of knowledge and how the church works, and what we call personal stature; roughly those areas. And we looked at other candidates but we felt that he scored highest among those considered. He was the best candidate at that time. I must say that in terms of what has been reported to me, what has been said over the last few days since I got here, it does seem to me that the choice was extremely well received, certainly in the church. I haven't spoken to persons outside of the church community but certainly within the church community the choice seems to be extremely well received."
Keith Swift,
Was his age a factor?
Most Rev. Drexel Gomez,
"Well it was a factor that caused us to delay and ponder and pray, put it that way. We believe that the new bishop certainly has the disposition, he is willing to listen, and he is willing not to take on everything but to share and delegate and to be part of a team and we believe that with that kind of attitude, he should have a very very successful ministry."
Tomorrow's consecration begins at 10 am and will be broadcast live right here on Channel 7. The diocese of Belize's last ordination was eleven years ago when Reverend Sylvestre Romero Palma was ordained. Palma, who resigned last year and moved to California, is in Belize for the ceremony. And while at 38 Bishop Wright will be the youngest bishop in this province, he isn't the youngest ever. In fact Drexel was chosen as the bishop at age 35.
