Cardinal Timothy Dolan's Family Member Named New Rector of Town and Country Church

The Reverend Pamela Dolan will be welcomed by Bishop Wayne Smith as the new rector at Wednesday.

Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd is pleased to announce the Renewal of Ministry with the Welcoming of a New Rector to be held at 7:00 p.m., Wednesday, April 18, at Church of the Good Shepherd, 1166 S. Mason Road, Town & Country, MO 63131.

The Rt. Rev. George Wayne Smith, Tenth Bishop of Missouri, will preside over the service and install The Rev. Pamela Dolan as the new Rector at Church of the Good Shepherd. The preacher will be the Rev. John Musgrave, Rector Emeritus of Good Shepherd.

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Pamela was born in California and moved to Micronesia at age 7. Her family soon relocated to Hawaii, where she spent the rest of grade school and high school. She has the distinction of attending Punahou Academy, alma mater of President Barack Obama, Steve Case, and Carie Ann Inaba.

She was baptized and raised Roman Catholic. She knew early on (at her First Communion at age 7) that she had a calling to the church and that it would play a central role in her life. While an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, she spent her Junior Year Abroad at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. That was the first place she articulated a sense of vocation, and began to struggle with the male-only definition of priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church. After graduating from Cal (Phi Beta Kappa with Highest Honors in English), she moved to Seattle, where she worked in a bookstore and was set up on a date with John Dolan, whom she married in 1994. John Dolan is a first cousin of Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York.

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Pamela attended Harvard Divinity School and graduated with an MTS in 1995. While at HDS she felt very torn over vocational issues and did not think she could ever leave "the Church" so she decided to turn her energy elsewhere and began a doctorate in medieval English at NYU. Pamela was on a full scholarship with stipend and enjoyed NYU, but moved away before completing her degree.

Pamela felt called to pursue ordination (as in “an actual voice of God” moment) while pregnant with her first child, Annabel.  Annie was born in 1998 in Connecticut.  Her second daughter, Kathleen, followed in 2004 and was born in California.

Pamela became an Episcopalian in 2000, after moving back to California. She began working in an Episcopal parish as Director of Family Ministries. The path to ordination was met with seemingly insurmountable obstacles. In 2005, John’s career moved them to St. Louis, which allowed them to be closer to his family.  She began working her way into the discernment process in the Diocese of Missouri, and it was as if every door opened before she could knock. 

She became a postulant for Holy Orders in the fall of 2008 and began the Doctorate of Ministry program at Sewanee, the University of the South, in the summer of 2009. Pamela was ordained to the transitional diaconate on December 18, 2009 and to the priesthood on June 19, 2010. Pamela worked at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Webster Groves from 2006-2011, first as Communications Assistant, then as Director of Christian Formation for Children and Families, then as Curate.

Pamela’s blog, “An Inquiring Stranger”, runs on the Civil Religion page of stltoday.com.

Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd was established as a mission of the Diocese of Missouri in 1953, sponsored by St. Peter’s Church in Ladue, Missouri.  In 1956 the facilities were available on the present site in Town & Country, Missouri.  The Rev. Pamela Dolan is the 6th Rector since the church was founded.   

This event is open to the public.

COMPLIMENTARY VALET PARKING is available. 

For directions please click here or call 314-576-5502.