The Rev. Canon Andrew Dietsche — a local favorite, with a decade of experience here in NYC — has just been elected the next Episcopal bishop of New York. (The election was for a “coadjutor” with right of succession to the current bishop.) He defeated a host of other contenders, most notably Tracey Lind, the married-lesbian dean of Trinity Cathedral in Cleveland. Conservative Anglican blogger David Virtue wrote a couple of days ago that Lind was running “a well-funded and politically savvy campaign.” I saw her in action at a candidates’ forum last month; she seemed earnest and competent but not especially warm.

The avuncular Dietsche has an uphill climb as he tackles the diocese’s troubled finances. He is hardly the first bishop to face this particular task; the recent RC archbishop of New York, Edward Cardinal Egan, did a good job in a similar predicament. But Dietsche is the first bishop I have ever encountered who has also been a cartoonist: I make no special claims for his drawing style, but I think the one on page 13 of this document is an especially witty send-up of liturgical niche-marketing in today’s consumer-friendly church marketplace.