The Rev. Canon Paul E. Lambert, Canon to the Ordinary for the Diocese of Dallas, was elected bishop suffragan of that diocese on the sixth ballot of a special electing convention March 29 at the Cathedral Church of St. Matthew in Dallas.
 
Canon Lambert has served as Canon to the Ordinary of Dallas since 2002. He graduated from Nashotah House Seminary and was ordained priest by Bishop Victor M. Rivera of San Joaquin in 1975. Three years later he left California to accept a call as an assistant at the Church of the Transfiguration in Dallas. Except for a three-year tenure as rector of St. John’s Church in Great Bend, Kan., in the early 1980s, all of the remainder of Canon Lambert’s ordained ministry experience has been within the Diocese of Dallas.
 
Needing 63 clergy votes and 102 laity on the sixth ballot, Canon Lambert received 71 clergy votes and 120 lay. The Rev. Leander S. Harding, associate professor of pastoral theology and head of chapel, Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, Ambridge, Pa., received 24 clergy votes and 49 lay on the sixth ballot. The Rev. Canon David W. Holland, rector, Church of the Annunciation, Lewisville, Texas, received 29 clergy votes and 33 lay. The Rev. Raymond E. Jennison, Jr., priest-in-charge, St David’s, Garland, Texas, received one lay vote on the sixth ballot.
 
A total of six candidates appeared on the first ballot, but the Rev. Ally Perry, vicar, St. John the Apostle, Pottsboro, Texas, withdrew after the second ballot and the Rev Canon Neal O. Michell, canon missioner for strategic development for the Diocese of Dallas, withdrew after the third.
 
The Rt. Rev. James M. Stanton, Bishop of Dallas, said the diocese was planning for Canon Lambert to be consecrated on July 12 and leave for the Lambeth Conference of Bishops in Canterbury, England the following day. Before Canon Lambert can be consecrated, however, a majority of diocesan standing committees and bishops with jurisdiction must grant consent.
 
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