The Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts consecrated Whitworth last fall as the 17th bishop in its 240-year history. As the first woman to lead its 47,000 members, she oversees 180 congregations in the larger of the state’s two Episcopal dioceses. She hopes to attract more churchgoers and particularly to help smaller parishes find new ways to grow. “There’s a crisis of belonging right now,” she says. “There’s a longing for community.”

A lifelong Episcopalian who now lives in Boston, Whitworth majored in drama and English and later worked as a professional theater director. Her focus changed after 9/11. “It turned my heart back to an earlier call to ordination, and I entered Union Theological Seminary in 2007,” she says. She earned her master’s of divinity degree in 2010, then worked as a cathedral canon in New York City and as a priest in Connecticut and Indiana.