The election of the Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori as presiding bishop of the Anglican Church in America came as no shock to her former “boss” here in Corvallis.

“I’m not surprised. She’s very qualified and quite brilliant,” said the Rev. Bill McCarthy, the recently retired rector of the Episcopal Church of the Good Samaritan.

The task of leading what has become a much divided denomination over the place of homosexuality in the church will be a challenging one, but McCarthy believes Jefferts Schori has what it takes to do the job well.

The first woman ever to be nominated much less elected to the national position served alongside McCarthy as assistant rector at the Good Samaritan church for six years until 2001 when she became the new bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Nevada. McCarthy retired in March after 17 years as pastor of the Corvallis congregation

“She is a very intelligent person and a good listener. She thinks things through and then acts on what she believes,” McCarthy said.

He went further to describe his former associate as someone who doesn’t worry about what other people think once she’s decided on a course of action.

“You can get torn up in a position like this if you’re always trying to please other people. But she’ll make decisions based on what she believes is right and then live with those decisions,” he said.

Jefferts Schori attended Good Samaritan church while working on her master’s and doctorate degrees in oceanography at Oregon State University in the mid-1970s.

She worked as an oceanographer for several years and then returned to Corvallis in 1985 with her husband Richard Schori, a mathematics professor at OSU.

She became active again within the local parish and did volunteer work, including helping to start the Benton County Habitat for Humanity chapter and serving as treasurer of the Assistance League of Corvallis.

Struggling to find a new direction in life, she was encouraged by fellow church members to consider the priesthood, a notion she didn’t take very seriously until she was asked by McCarthy to preach in his absence one week.

“The process of preparing to preach, and the response I got afterwards, really got me off the dime. I sent to seminary the very next fall,” she said in an interview with the Gazette-Times in January 2001, shortly before moving to Nevada.

McCarthy — who is also a friend of the departing bishop the Most Rev. Frank Griswold — said Jefferts Schori’s gifts as a leader were obvious during her tenure at Good Samaritan.

Fluent in Spanish, she began a Hispanic congregation and coordinated an extensive Christian education program.

Jefferts Schori’s new role will last for nine years and will take her around the world as the United States’ Episcopal church liaison to the worldwide Anglican Communion.

“She has just the right temperament and is very sophisticated,” McCarthy predicted. “I wish her well.”

At a glance

NAME: The Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori

AGE: 52

EXPERIENCE: Oceanographer, National Marine Fisheries Service, Seattle; Ordained, 1994; assistant rector Episcopal Church of the Good Samaritan and dean of Good Samaritan School of Theology in Corvallis; consecrated bishop of Nevada, 2001; Voted to confirm first openly gay bishop, 2003; Member, Special Commission on the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion

EDUCATION: bachelor’s degree in biology from Stanford University, 1974; master’s in oceanography, Oregon State University, 1977; Ph.d., Oregon State University, 1983; master’s in divinity, Church Divinity School of the Pacific, 1994

FAMILY: Husband, Richard Miles Schori; one daughter

— Associated Press