Presbyterian World Mission has named Ruling Elder Vilmarie Cintrón-Olivieri and the Rev. José Manuel Capella-Pratts as new regional liaisons for the Caribbean. Cintrón-Olivieri has already begun her work and Capella-Pratts, her husband of 25 years, will join her in January 2022.
Orientation for moderators and co-moderators of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) probably never included learning how to sniff out the one true story from a trio of weird church stories.
If their repartee on Facebook is any indication, the current and former General Assembly co-moderators, moderators and vice moderators, quite frankly, miss each other.
Saying that “evangelism is the business of every disciple of Jesus Christ,” Vilmarie Cintrón-Olivieri and the Rev. José Manuel Capella-Pratts kicked off their discussion at the REvangelism conference Tuesday afternoon, which is exploring the 8 Habits of Evangelism.
There has been a lot of talk in the past year about twin pandemics and multiple pandemics, including the COVID-19 virus, extrajudicial killings of people who are Black, poverty, and other societal ills exacerbated by the circumstances of the 2020s, thus far.
But one of the quietest pandemics has been gender-based violence, particularly violence against women.
“October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month,” Ruling Elder Vilmarie Cintrón-Olivieri, Co-Moderator of the 223rd General Assembly (2018), said as she greeted worshipers during Wednesday’s online chapel service.
In the late ’90s, Vilmarie Cintrón-Olivieri became a member of a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) congregation in Puerto Rico with a membership of fewer than 20 people. The congregation, the co-moderator of the 223rd General Assembly (2018) recalls, had gone through a schism, and her spouse, the Rev. José Manuel, was called to be its redevelopment pastor. When the couple arrived, they discovered that there was no session, no deacons, no Christian education programs and no musicians. “Church” consisted of Sunday worship only. An administrative commission appointed by the presbytery served as the session.
As he began to talk exclusively with unchurched people, Dr. Tom Bagley heard the same thing again and again from people who were spiritually curious about God and faith: They wanted nothing to do with the church because of its hypocrisy, judgmentalism and exclusivity.
The rich heritage of the Hispanic-Latina community will be lifted up and celebrated on Tuesday, Aug. 24, as the Week of Action returns for a second year.
