Bishop Jefferts -Schori to Give Inaugural Beers Lecture

In a year that has seen her presented an honorary degree from Oxford University and invited to give the Second Annual C.S. Lewis Legacy Lecture at Westminster College, the first woman in the history of the United States Episcopal Church to become Presiding Bishop, Bishop Katharine Jefferts-Schori, will deliver the inaugural David Booth Beers Lecture on the Practice of Law at the University of California Hastings School of the Law in San Francisco on Tuesday, March 5.

Her 11am lecture on Litigation and Suing Traditional Christians will be held in the Louis B. Mayer Multipurpose Room in Snodgrass Hall and will be open to the public with seating on a first-come, first-served basis. Following the lecture, which was endowed by an anonymous donor in honor of Bishop Schori's Chancellor, David Booth Beers, both Bishop Schori and Mr. Beers, a 1960 graduate of the Hastings School of the Law, will be awarded the degree of Doctor of Letters and Law (Honoris Causa).

“We are quite honored that the Presiding Bishop has accepted our invitation to lecture,” said John Leshy, the Harry D. Sunderland Distinguished Professor of Real Property Law. “Neither her divinity degree nor her two graduate degrees in oceanography give her any expertise on this subject, but she more than makes up for it in real world experience suing both individuals and churches. Her track record is, quite simply, unparallelled.”

Bishop Jefferts-Schori was an oceanographer before being ordained in 1994 and has continued to use her knowledge of invertebrates in dealing with the House of Bishops. She remains an active, instrument-rated pilot. Before her election as Bishop she was a priest and university lecturer but remarkably never had charge of a parish.

The Presiding Bishop is the Chief Ecumenical Officer of the Church and Pastor and Primate of this national church with around 1.8 million members claimed in the United States alone. The Presiding Bishop is charged with responsibility for leadership in initiating, developing, and articulating policy and strategy, overseeing the administration of the national church staff, speaking for the church on issues of concern and interest, and putting a stick to them and making them jump.