St. Clement's by-the-Sea in the News

Faiths strike chord

Four denominations gather in O.C. to celebrate what is common to their differing beliefs.

January 26, 2001

By VALERIA GODINES
The Orange County Register
From San Juan Capistrano

 

It's not every day that a woman preaches from the pulpit at the Mission Basilica San Juan Capistrano.

But Thursday was a day for Christians to set aside the differences in their faiths and celebrate what they share in common. Orange County's four major faiths met in one church in honor of the National Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, overlooking the issues that normally set the faiths apart - the role of women, the interpretation of Scriptures and the structure of the church.

About 700 people gathered to hear the Very Rev. Mary June Nestler, dean of the Episcopal Theological School at Claremont, talk about the foundation of their faiths: Jesus Christ.

"I think all Christians would agree that Jesus is central, and He is the foundation on which we rest and that we are called in His name to be active in service," Nestler said before the celebration.

"I think it's a wonderful statement ... that the group organizing this has invited a woman to preach. That itself shows where the ecumenical cooperation has come to," she said.

Four leaders led the Ecumenical Celebration of the Word: Bishop Tod D. Brown of the Catholic Diocese of Orange; the Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno, bishop coadjutor of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles (which includes Orange County); the Rev. Murray Finck, bishop of the Pacific Synod of the Evangelical Church in America; and Elder Jane Odell, interim executive presbyter of the Presbytery of Los Ranchos.

The hourlong celebration included singing, readings and Nestler's sermon based on Ephesians 2:17-22.

Georgia Gullixson, 73, and Barbara LaBoyteaux, 82, came from Seal Beach to join the celebration.

They are members of the Redeemer Lutheran Church in Leisure World. Their pastor, Minh-Hahn Nguyen, urged them to participate and drove them to the celebration.

"We might have a little difference in the way we conduct our services, but Jesus Christ is the important thing," said Gullixson, who had been to a Catholic church once before.

Ricardo Moreno, pastor of the Primera Iglesia Presbiteriana Hispana in Westminster, agreed.

"I love this," Moreno said. "I think this the future for Christianity."

But it's not easy to bring different faiths together, he said. When he told his congregation - made up of 100 Latinos from all over Latin America - that he was attending the celebration, he saw shocked faces.

In many parts of Latin America, there is a deep competitive divide between the Catholic and evangelical faiths. Many of Moreno's churchgoers have carried those conflicted feelings with them to the United States.

So while Moreno is excited about the top leaders from the four faiths coming together, "We need to go down to the pews, where there is a lot of work to do."

Thursday night's celebration took two months of planning, said the Rev. Rafael Luevano, the Diocese of Orange's Catholic ecumenical officer.

"We met over a long period of time to plan who would do what and how everything would happen," Luevano said. "First, you have to develop a level of trust and have to get to know each other. You become friends and that friendship becomes the first bond of our union.

"We have developed very strong bonds and a very high level of trust and a very high comfort level. Once we started working together, we started finding out how much we have in common."The Christian Unity event is a worldwide commemoration that was started in 1908 by an Anglican priest and later promoted in this country by the Graymoor Friars, an ecumenical Catholic group, and the National Council of Churches.