The Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest

Lloyd Emmanuel Allen

First native-born Bishop of the Diocese of Honduras, you are guiding your diocese in the mission fields of Central America. Challenging the diocese to have a quarter million communicants by decade's end, you insist that "There is no reason for the Church to be static."

Your path toward ministry was anything but static. Feeling a call to the priesthood from your acolyte days in an Episcopal elementary school, you hoped to enter seminary after high school graduation. Your bishop and our long-time friend, Anselmo Carral, insisted that you first see the world, so you circled the globe for three-and-a-half years in the Merchant Marines. After further study while teaching at a university and being a lay pastor, you came to this country for long-awaited seminary studies.

You returned to Honduras after graduation from the Seminary of the Southwest in 1989, began your ministry as vicar of St. Mary's in Tegucigalpa and opened ten churches in the next twelve years. Always active in ministry to the poor, you insist that volunteers work with - not for - the people. ETSS seminarians, who traveled to Honduras twice to assist rebuilding efforts after Hurricane Mitch devastated your country, saw in detail how the relief work you orchestrated with two other ETSS graduates truly merged social action and evangelism.

Equally comfortable in the barrio and the boardroom, you have done much to make the Diocese of Honduras the fastest growing in the Episcopal Church. For the honor you bring to your seminary and the promise of an even more vibrant ministry, we are pleased to confer upon you the degree of Doctor of Divinity, honoris causa.

May 21, 2002 Austin, Texas