The first female head of Philadelphia’s Church of the Advocate is stepping down

Philadelphia’s Church of the Advocate has a long history of social activism on behalf of the poor, the marginalized, the outsider, the other.

There is a spirit at the North Philadelphia church, the Rev. Renee McKenzie said, that compels it to take bold and unorthodox action.

That was the reason she did not hesitate to welcome Carmela Hernandez, an undocumented migrant woman and her four children, into sanctuary at the sprawling French Gothic church in November 2017.

“I could easily put myself in her place,” McKenzie told the Inquirer recently. “I could understand that drive to make sure my children are safe,” said McKenzie, a married mother of four, with two children, two step-children and three grandchildren.

Hernandez and her family fled Mexico and sought asylum in the United States after drug dealers killed her brother and two of her nephews.

The family lived at the North Philadelphia church for just over a year, leaving in December 2018 to take up sanctuary at the Germantown Mennonite Church when McKenzie had to take time off for surgery.

McKenzie was among the speakers this year on March 17, when the Hernandez family finally left the Germantown church, after three years and three months living in sanctuary.

“Freedom is never free,” she told the crowd. “Sometimes you just have to grasp it and take it because it’s yours, and you’re not going to let anyone take it from you.”

McKenzie has just stepped down as vicar, though she was on long-term medical leave from December 2019 until the beginning of March this year.

Now, she and Bishop Daniel Gutiérrez, leader of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania, are in talks about the exact details of her retirement, the bishop said Monday.

In the meantime, McKenzie, 65, who lives in Lawnside, N.J., with her husband of 36 years, Isaac Hayward, plans to write a book on the history of the church, whose full name is the George W. South Memorial Church of the Advocate, and its former vicar, the late Rev. Paul Washington. Washington led the church for 25 years, from 1962 until 1987, during a time of intense social change in America.

“I think Renee has a unique voice, and a voice that needs to be heard,” Gutiérrez said Monday

“As she writes that book, we will help her in any way.”

The announcement of a new long-term interim vicar at the storied church, at 1801 Diamond St., is expected be made in a matter of weeks, the bishop said.

Since McKenzie stepped down, Canon Shawn Wamsley, has been assigned to lead the church in addition to his other duties in the diocese.

Father Paul, as he was known, became an international figure for providing a space for political, even radical, causes.

There was the National Conference on Black Power in 1968, the Black Panther Conference in 1970, and he hosted the first ordination of 11 women in the Episcopal Church, known as the Philadelphia 11, in 1974, without authorization from the church governing body.

“I really believe it is the spirit, the spirit of the Advocate, the spirit of the Lord that keeps pushing this church in that direction,” McKenzie told a filmmaker three years ago about hosting the migrant family.

“It doesn’t make a difference if I’m the person who is in charge here. Whoever is here, the spirit of the Advocate would have pushed them to do what we are doing.”

“I want to celebrate Paul, we need to know who he is,” she told the Inquirer this month. “It would be wonderful if the Episcopal Church lifted him as one of the holy men and holy women of the church. I think Paul Washington was a holy man.”

News that McKenzie, the first woman vicar to lead the church, has stepped down, has raised questions about the future of the church.

There has been some talk about making the Advocate a center for race and reconciliation. However the bishop said it is much too early to say that will happen.

“There’s probably no other place that could be considered the headquarters for Black movement activism,” said Fasaha M. Traylor, a longtime educator, philanthropy leader and co-author of the recent book, They Carried Us: The Social Impact of Philadelphia’s Black Women Leaders.

Traylor said Washington supported women to become empowered as community and religious leaders.

The late Episcopal Bishop Barbara C. Harris, the first woman elected bishop in the Anglican church worldwide, was a Black woman who first served as Washington’s assistant.

As rector’s warden, Harris carried the cross and led the 11 women to ordination on July 29, 1974.

“Sister Falaka Fattah started her magazine, Umojo, [in which she wrote about ending gang violence] after attending the Black Power conference there,” Traylor said.

And Mattie L. Humphrey, a nurse, health administrator and lawyer, promoted educational Black talk radio on health and prison issues, had worked closely with Washington, she said.

It wasn’t long after McKenzie became vicar in 2011, that she started hearing stories about Father Paul, particularly from older church and community members.

“I just heard how Paul Washington and the Advocate were such a presence in people’s lives,” she said.

One story was that soon after he arrived in 1962, Washington was standing outside the church, when a woman walked by one day. He called out to say, “God bless you,” or “God loves you,” she said.

“The woman said to him, ‘Well, it’s easy for you to know that God loves you because you have a place to sleep and you have food to eat.”

From that point, she said, Washington decided, “This church needs to be a place that lives the Gospel.”

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Over the years, the church operated a number of programs to address almost every need, from unemployment, education, to hunger.

For almost 38 years, it has provided hot meals to 70 to 80 people daily at Advocate Café. There was an after-school tutoring program, youth and adult basketball leagues, counseling for people dealing with drug and alcohol problems, and, for a few years, the Prometheus Chamber Orchestra performed here.

In the 1960s, Washington invited musicians, like John Coltrane, to perform weekly jazz programs. And in 1970s, Philadelphia artists, Walter Edmonds and Richard Watson painted a series of 14 murals showing the “stations” of the Civil Rights Movement.

In 1998, Lorene Carey, the author and playwright, founded Art Sanctuary, a Black arts program, at the Advocate.

And since about 2012, Anthony Moneiro, a former Temple University adjunct professor, has led the “Saturday Free School,” where people gather to read and discuss the works of W.E. B. DuBois, James Baldwin and others.

McKenzie, who suffers from a chronic autoimmune disease, said the stress of meeting financial needs of the church was a factor in her decision to leave. At one point in September 2019, it appeared that the long-running Advocate Café might have to shut down. But a donor pitched in to keep the program going. Before the pandemic, about 30 to 40 people attended the weekly Sunday church services.

Other than Washington’s own autobiography, Other Sheep I Have, there is not another book that examines this ministry, she said. And she worries a younger generation will lose sight of his story.

For now, the working title of McKenzie’s book is, Making a Case for the Church of the Advocate.

“Paul started this incredible ministry … but he galvanized people in such a powerful and transformative way.”

“The case I’m trying to make for the Advocate is that it’s still very, very vital,” and is “still a critical hub” for North Philadelphia and beyond. “If the Advocate is allowed to thrive, it will be a very powerful ministry,” McKenzie said.