Influential Woman · Episcopal Church

Patricia Handloss

Priest, retired

Edgecomb, ME

Certifications · Degrees · Memberships

Degree University of California at Davis Degree Master's degree in Urban Affairs from St. Louis University (incomplete) Degree Seminary education Member Episcopal Women's Caucus (Co-founder) Member The Forum in St. Louis

Her Story

About Patricia

I have been in ministry for 52 years and was one of the first women ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Church. My journey began when I felt a calling at age 8, though I was initially told I couldn't become a priest because I was a woman. After being rejected by a chaplain in college, I joined the Peace Corps and later started a health center for the Appalachian poor in St. Louis that is still operating today. In 1970, I became one of three founders of the Episcopal Women's Caucus, working to get women ordained in the church. Once ordained, I served wonderful parishes and focused on my specialties of pastoral counseling and preaching. My most significant achievement was creating the Memorial Garden at the Old North Church in Boston, which honors those who died in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. What began as a way to protest President Bush's policy of not publishing war casualties became an internationally recognized memorial and tourist attraction. Now retired from regular parish work, I dedicate myself to mentoring young women entering the priesthood, helping them navigate the subtle but real challenges that still exist for women in church leadership. I continue pastoral counseling through my spiritual direction practice and am currently writing a book.

Quick Facts

IndustryEpiscopal Church
Based inEdgecomb, ME
Languages English, Italian, Spanish
Specialty Pastoral Counseling, Preaching, Spiritual Direction
- Mentoring Women in Ministry
Volunteers with Memorial Garden at Old North Church
- Health center for Appalachian poor in St. Louis
- Prayers for Peace program with King Hussein
- Civil rights voter registration in the South
- Animal Rescue League of Boston (Board member)
- Blessing of the Animals at Old North Church

Her Interview

Ten minutes with Patricia

01What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?

I would ask her about her faith, her support system, and her dreams - what she hopes to give in life, not to get, but to give. If there's a strength there, a personal strength, I think when people give, there's strength, and a giving heart can survive almost anything. If she has that, and she has the intellectual capability, I'd say go for it. And then if she wants me to walk the journey with her, I will. For those who come in and say the other in life, whatever the other is for them, is where the light is, go for it. We'll go for it, and we'll walk that journey, and you'll be successful. You'll be good, and you'll be able to serve people from your heart. If you serve people from your mind, it doesn't work very well. It works for a while, but if you serve people from your heart, it always works.

02What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?

It's still not easy for a woman to be in a leadership position in the Episcopal Church. It's subtler now, but I've had young women come to me and say they're on a committee and the committee doesn't even refer to them, they just sit. If she's the only woman, and if she's in certain parts of the United States, she is alone. She really is alone, and needs mentoring and sort of maybe distant companionship, but companionship as she goes through her journey. The men never had the difficulty of somebody rejecting them because they were men, but we did. We had the men and some women rejecting us, starting certainly in the 70s, rejecting us because we were women.

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