How to address her? “Your Grace”, seemed
appropriate but that is reserved for archbishops, even if “grace” is
hardly the first word that comes to mind when considering some who have
held such office.
“My Lord”, of course, is out.
She
will be “The Most Rev” as opposed to “The Right Rev”.
Bishops of Meath
and Kildare are automatically “The Most Rev”. All other bishops in the Church of Ireland are “Right Rev”.
She also has been referred to as “Bishop-elect Storey”. So what’s it to be?
“Call me Pat,” said the Co Down native who will be consecrated on Saturday as the first woman bishop in these islands.
Hers was a late vocation. She wanted to be
an air hostess. She was a doctor’s receptionist and worked for years
with Weight Watchers. She is a wife and the mother of two adult
children. This is no ordinary bishop.
She grew up
on the Cregagh Road in east Belfast in a family that was “nominally
Presbyterian but we didn’t go [to church]”. She “fell into” religion at Trinity College Dublin.
She had gone there in 1978 to study English and French because she
wanted to follow in the footsteps of her “very glamorous aunt”, who was
an air hostess.
A friend was also a student at
TCD. “She kinda worked on me I suppose and eventually I started reading
the gospels, made a decision of faith for myself.”
She started attending
church in Kill O’The Grange parish – “a lot of the students” went to
church – and became a youth worker there on finishing at Trinity in
1982. Working with youth would be a major part of her life.
‘Ecstatic’
‘Ecstatic’
At the time she survived on £10 a week, stayed with “a lovely couple in Killiney”, while her family funded her car. Her family were “really pleased” when she started going to church.
They were “thrilled, and then
when I mentioned the ministry later on in life they were over the
moon”.
Her mother has since died, while her father is “ecstatic” that
she will be a bishop.
It was at Trinity she met
her husband, Earl, then training for the ministry. He was a curate in
Dungannon when they married in 1983. She became a receptionist for a GP
there. They moved to Crinken parish in south Co Dublin in 1986, where
Earl was rector for 10 years.
Their two children, Carolyn (26) and Luke
(22), were born there. She worked for Weight Watchers for several years
and “did jobs that fitted in with family life”.
When the children were a bit older she wanted to
do more with her life. She and Earl discussed it. He thought “two
ministers in the family would be chaos” so when she was accepted it was
“a bit of a shock”. She began training in 1994. Her first curacy was in Ballymena,
Co Antrim. Earl was by then working in Belfast. She became curate at
Glenavy parish there when Earl was rector.
“Actually, it was grand but
we wouldn’t have done it long term. It was a very happy time . . . we’ve
been happy everywhere we’ve been.”
In 2004 they
moved to Derry where she has been rector at St Augustine’s since. Earl
has set up a PR business there. “It’s devastating to be packing up and
leaving. I love Derry. It’s a very special city.”
She was on the road to Derry when she got that “most unexpected” call from Church of Ireland primate Archbishop Richard Clarke. She had been at a wedding in Wicklow and was driving home.
Elected
Elected
“The archbishop said something like: ‘Look Pat, this is going to be a surprise. You’d better pull in’.”
He told her she had been elected
Bishop of Meath and Kildare.
“I fall on the floor of my little MX5 and
think how will I get home with this news?”
She asked for 24 hours to
think about it.
She rang Earl. “I think he thought from the
tone of my voice someone had died.”
The family discussed it.
She and
Earl went for a long walk over the Foyle bridge, and back.
“It
would have been a very hard thing to turn down.”
She recalled how
Archbishop Clarke had said “trust the church. Trust the process. You’ve
been elected. It’s not tokenism. Those sort of things helped. I felt
like I had to trust the Holy Spirit.”
The following morning she rang to
accept.
She and Archbishop Clarke have discussed
how she is to be addressed and decided that, on formal occasions, she
will be addressed as “Madam Bishop”.
She will be consecrated in Dublin’s Christ Church Cathedral on Saturday.