At memorial service for Bishop Chet Talton, (from left) Bishop John Harvey Taylor preaches homily as urn and mitre are in view at cathedral altar; service opens after stirring hymn; Bishop-elect Antonio Gallardo (right) greets the Rev. Canon Warner Traynham, rector emeritus of St. John’s. Episcopal News photos by Bob Williams
Retired Los Angeles Bishop Suffragan Chester Lovelle Talton was remembered with gratitude, tears, laughter and applause as a devoted father, husband and grandfather, a gentle giant, a gifted leader, teacher, pastor and ardent prophet for justice and reconciliation, “the finest of bishops,” as hundreds gathered at a Dec. 27, 2025, memorial service at St. John’s Cathedral.
Throughout a ministry spanning four decades, in the dioceses of California, Minnesota, Chicago and from Wall Street to Harlem in New York, and Los Angeles to San Joaquin, Talton generated “a trail of healed relationships, affordable housing projects, daycare centers and expanded community outreach,” said Bishop John Harvey Taylor, preacher and celebrant.
“As the generations roll, he will have influenced tens of thousands of lives. He confirmed my daughters Valerie and Lindsay and ordained me as a priest, so we celebrate him as part of our family story,” Taylor said.
In L.A., where Talton served for nearly 20 years as The Episcopal Church’s first African American bishop in the western United States, he became part of many family’s stories, Taylor said. He died Nov. 20 at the age of 84 at his home in Altadena, surrounded by loved ones.
“In the weeks since Bishop Talton died, in each congregation I have visited, someone has mentioned his kindness, when he came to confirm them or their children,” Taylor said. “That soft old-school tap he would render on the side of the confirmand’s face, the way he modeled strength and gentleness as the prophet and the pastor, the counselor and the friend, the person with authority in the system who used authority as a servant does, as Christ commanded. When Chet’s name came up, people’s eyes softened and their smile widened.”
Son Benjamin Talton describes “oak of a father.”
Talton also mentored a generation of deacons and helped co-found the Episcopal Community Federal Credit Union, an economic justice ministry, in the wake of the 1992 L.A. riots. The credit union, Taylor said, empowers and encourages God’s people in a part of the city forgotten by commercial lenders.
“My father lived a life that speaks for itself,” said Talton’s son Benjamin, amid applause, adding that he and his siblings and their families “hit the jackpot” with his presence in their lives. “My father was not perfect, he was human. But he was great and I’m thankful for who he was, for me and for you. He was an oak of a father.”
The Rev. Canon Kate Cullinane remembers Talton as “healing bishop” provisional in San Joaquin.
After his 2010 retirement, Talton became “the healing bishop” while serving in the Diocese of San Joaquin from 2011 to 2014, said the Rev. Canon Kate Cullinane, who was canon to the ordinary there. As provisional bishop, Talton shepherded Episcopalians reconstituting the church after the Fresno-based diocese fractured over the full inclusion of women and LGBTQ+ clergy and same-sex marriage. While there, he ordained that diocese’s first transgender priest.
Talton’s memorial service may be viewed here.
A full obituary may be found here.
Formed in a crucible of ‘Race and Prayer’
In “Race and Prayer’, a book co-authored with the late Rev. Canon Malcolm Boyd, former poet-in-residence of the Diocese of Los Angeles, Talton attributed his desire to serve like his youthful pastor. The Rev. Lewis Baskervill, rector of St. Augustine’s Church in Oakland, had offered Talton “a model for how to be a good man in a sometimes cruel world,” creating family and beloved community, Taylor said.
Talton’s own experiences, also detailed in the book, of being turned away because of race, from membership in a Boy Scout troop meeting in an Episcopal church, and from renting an apartment near the seminary that was later given to a white classmate, and by clergy who reportedly told him, as a newly ordained transitional deacon in 1970, their congregations weren’t ready for an African American curate, fueled his outspoken and fervent commitment to justice, Taylor said.
“When a gay or lesbian person was scapegoated or marginalized, the trans or nonbinary person was injured by injustice, the immigrant worker was harassed and abused for their labor, Bishop Talton had been there,” Taylor said. “As a pastor, he bathed their pain and shame with the balm of his empathy. He used his authority, his experience, to show the scapegoated the way out of the wilderness to their place of authority and power.”
The Rev. Vanessa Mackenzie reflects ties to loved ones from South Africa.
The Rev. Vanessa Mackenzie, rector of L.A.’s Church of the Advent, said Talton answered with his life, “the hard and holy question” once put to him by a mentor: “Why would you want to serve in a church that you would love more than it would love you?”
Talton forged a relationship with former South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and was arrested for demonstrating against apartheid, an arrest he viewed as a gift, she said. “It was a blessing because he believed his life was spared for service.”
That service included creating a web of relationships that brought Mackenzie to L.A. to serve as Advent’s rector 25 years ago. It extended to her father, the Rt. Rev. Edward Mackenzie, former bishop suffragan of the Diocese of Cape Town, who served as assisting bishop in L.A. from 2001 until his death in 2020. And widened further, to yet another generation, her nephew, the Rev. Lester Mackenzie, who serves as Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe’s chief of mission program.
“A great tree has fallen, but the roots remain,” Mackenzie said. “The connections endure and the future has been shaped by his faithfulness.” Talton has rightly joined the “circle of ancestors. We are better because he lived and we will carry forward what he has entrusted to us.”
A ‘trailblazer and teacher, a blessing to the world’
The Rev. Guy Leemhuis reads tribute from St. Louis Bishop Deon Johnson.
Talton’s influence on the wider church, was remembered by Missouri Bishop Deon K. Johnson, in a letter read by the Rev. Guy Leemhuis, chair of the H. Belfield Hannibal chapter of the Union of Black Episcopalians.
“Bishop Talton was a gift to the church and a blessing to the world. He served with wisdom, courage and a deep love for God’s people. For us, his colleagues and siblings among Episcopal bishops of African descent, Bishop Talton was also a trailblazer and a teacher. He understood the sacred responsibility of ordained leadership forged at the intersection of faith, justice, and lived experience.
“He bore witness to the church’s call to be honest about its history, courageous in is present and hopeful for its future. He did not shrink from hard conversations, nor did he lose sight of the reconciling love of God revealed in Jesus Christ. He loved The Episcopal Church and believed deeply in the power of the gospel to transform lives and systems alike. We are grateful for the way he opened doors, widened tables and made room for voices too often unheard. His life proclaimed that faithfulness matters, perseverance matters, and that hope grounded in Christ will always endure.”
The Rev. Mauricio Wilson, president of national Union of Black Episcopalians, offers tribute.
Similarly, the Rev. Mauricio J. Wilson, national UBE president and rector of St. Paul’s Church in Oakland, Calif., remembered Talton as a true pastor who offered resources rather than imposing opinions to those in need of pastoral care.
“He has left a large footprint of ministers of African descent who, today and in the future, will lead The Episcopal Church,” Wilson said, expressing “a dual feeling of loss and hope…. What will live on is hope, hope that if we can do only 10 percent of what Bishop Talton did for this community, we will continue to move forward and become stronger, more resilient and more able to share the good news of Jesus Christ with honesty, with dedication, and with the legitimate voices of people of God seeking to move forward in life.”
The Rev. Canon Susan Russell offers tribute.
The Rev. Canon Susan Russell, canon for engagement in the Diocese of Los Angeles, said Talton’s influence on the church is immeasurable.
“Today, we are a church full of those who have never known a church that didn’t have women bishops, never known a diocese without bishops of color, never known a parish that didn’t have gay clergy or blessing same-sex unions. It is not the church I grew up in, thanks be to God,” she said.
Talton, “loved the church too much to let it settle for being what it was, continually calling it to be the best it could be. That commitment touched so many parts of our wider work and witness, from racial reconciliation to full inclusion for God’s LGBTQ beloved, to raising up the ministries of the diaconate, standing firm during the Anglican inclusion wars and ordaining the first transgender priest in the Diocese of San Joaquin.”
She drew laughter and applause when adding that Talton’s example of fierce loyalty, gifted mediation and bridge building inspired her to always ask in tough situations, “WWCD—What Would Chet Do?’ and then go and do likewise. The greatest tribute we can pay to his legacy is to follow in his footsteps.”
The Rev. Kamal Hassan reflects on loving family ties.
A family man
The Rev. Kamal Hassan, who leads Sojourner Truth Presbyterian Church in Richmond, Calif., recalled “laughter and good times” amid family, as well as Talton’s quiet courage. “We were blessed to witness his undying love for April Grayson Talton for the last two decades,” he added. The two were married in 2007.
Talton was predeceased by his first wife, Karen, whom he married in 1963, and who died in 2003, whose presence “is very much felt today,” Benjamin Talton said.
Grandson Jacob Talton speaks of his grandfather’s love.
Talton’s grandson Jacob also addressed the gathering, recalling the way his grandfather made him feel. “I always loved when we’d all be having family time, and he’d come behind me and rest his hand on my shoulder. He had a silent presence.
“Many times in my life he flew across country to see me in my biggest moments, and while he was there, not a word needed to be said, to feel what it meant for him and for me. Nothing needed to be said, but he was there.”
Seated in congregation are (from left) Bishops Mary Glasspool; Ed Little; and Diane Jardine Bruce with Steve Bruce; and Canon Kathy O’Connor, spouse of Bishop John Harvey Taylor.
Present at the memorial service were lay leaders and clergy from across the diocese and wider church, including L.A.’s former Bishops Suffragan Diane Jardine Bruce and Mary Douglas Glaspool; Assisting Bishop Ed Little, formerly diocesan bishop of Northern Indiana; and L.A.’s Bishop-elect Antonio Gallardo. The Very Rev. Anne Sawyer, the cathedral’s interim dean and priest-in-charge, coordinated the liturgy and arrangements.
Music was provided by members of the Inner-City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles, and founder and conductor Charles Dickerson, Susan Grayson Warren and St. John’s Cathedral choir. A reception following the service was hosted by the H. Belfield Hannibal UBE Chapter and the diocesan Program Group on Black Ministries.
Dean Betsy Hooper-Rosebrook officiates at Echo Park columbarium rites.
Following the cathedral service, family gathered at St. Paul’s Commons in Echo Park where Talton’s ashes were placed in the Lazarus Chapel columbarium with rites led by the Very Rev. Canon Betsy Hooper-Rosebrook.
The family has asked that contributions may be made in Talton’s memory to St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Upland’s Haiti Fund. One hundred percent of funds receive will go toward construction of shelters for displaced persons in the Central Plateau of Haiti whose homes have been seized by gangs.
Checks may be made payable to St. Mark’s Episcopal Church and mailed to the parish office at 330 East 16th Street, Upland, CA 91784. Zelle transfers may be made to give@stmarks-upland.org with Haiti—Bishop Talton in the memo or message space.