Simpson, Mary Michael (1925—)

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Simpson, Mary Michael (1925—)

American priest and psychotherapist. Born on December 1, 1925, in Evansville, Indiana; daughter of Link Wilson Simpson and Mary Garrett (Price) Simpson; Texas Women's University, B.A., B.S., 1946; graduated from New York Training School for Deaconesses, 1949; graduated from Westchester Institute Training in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, 1976.

First American nun to be ordained an Episcopal priest (1977); first woman to become a canon in the American Episcopal Church (1977); first ordained woman invited to preach at Britain's Westminster Abbey (1978).

Born in 1925 in Evansville, Indiana, Mary Michael Simpson graduated from Texas Women's University in 1946 and from the New York Training School for Deaconesses in 1949. She began her long and distinguished career with the Episcopal Church as a missionary at the Holy Cross Mission in Bolahun, Liberia, on the west coast of Africa, in 1950. Upon her return to the United States in 1952, Simpson worked at Margaret Hall School, a girls' school run by the Episcopal Order of St. Anne in Versailles, Kentucky, serving as academic head from 1958 to 1961. A member of the Order of St. Helena (an offshoot of the Order of St. Anne), she then served as the sister in charge of the Convent of St. Helena mission in Liberia (1962–67) and as director of novices there (1968–74).

Simpson returned to the United States in 1974 to become a pastoral counselor on the staff of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. She supplemented her counseling skills through training at the Westchester Institute Training in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, from which she graduated in 1976. Two years earlier she had opened her own private practice as a psychoanalyst, adding on a directorship of the Cathedral Counseling Service in 1975.

In 1976, the Episcopal General Convention agreed to open the priesthood to women. Only months later, in January 1977, Simpson became the first American nun to be ordained an Episcopal priest. (Several other women were ordained shortly thereafter.) While she received considerable support, there were some who felt that the convention had erred in its decision, and a number of people—including two sisters in her order—declined to receive communion from a woman. That year Simpson added to her duties at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine by becoming a canon there, the first woman canon (assistant to the dean) in the American Episcopal Church. In 1978, she was invited to preach at London's venerable Westminster Abbey, becoming the first ordained woman to preach there. Her invitation, from one of Westminster Abbey's canons, was part of a tour designed to boost support for the ordination of women in the Church of England. Simpson retired from the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in 1987, becoming an honorary canon, although she has since served as a pastor at several churches in the New York City area. A contributing author of Yes to Women Priests (1978), she is also the author of The Ordination of Women in the American Episcopal Church: The Present Situation (1981).