By David Paulsen

Episcopal News Service

The 82nd General Convention in 2027 will be held in Phoenix, based on a plan endorsed June 15 by Executive Council. The church governing body, in the final day of its four-day meeting in Providence, R.I., also approved an additional $2 million for research that is just getting underway into the Episcopal Church’s historic ties to Indigenous boarding schools.

The vote in favor of Phoenix was far from unanimous and generated significant controversy because San Juan, Puerto Rico, was passed over for a second straight time.

Several Executive Council members said the U.S. territory in the Caribbean should have been given the opportunity to host the Episcopal Church’s largest churchwide gathering. Puerto Rico Bishop Rafael Morales, an Executive Council member, personally expressed disappointment on behalf of his diocese.

“The people of Puerto Rico that I represent feel some rejection about that,” Morales said. He explained that after San Juan was first passed over in favor of Louisville, Ky., as host city of the 81st General Convention in 2024, churchwide leaders had encouraged Puerto Rico to try again.

“On the island, we have everything that we’ll need” to host General Convention, Morales said. “The issue was the cost, because of the rooms, because of the hotels,” he said, and the cost of airfare to the island from the continental United States, where most Episcopal dioceses are located. “We were ready to receive the convention with all the facilities, with a good convention center, but money speaks.”

House of Deputies President Julia Ayala Harris, who chaired the June 12-15 meeting, agreed that the loss to Puerto Rico was “devastating and heartbreaking,” though she also spoke strongly in favor of Phoenix as a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Planning and Arrangements that made the recommendation.

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