Lutheran bishop of El Salvador coming to city church Sunday
Lutheran Bishop Medardo Gomez of El Salvador will speak at two local Lutheran churches this Sunday.
Local church officials say Gomez is visiting the United States to publicize the plight of the civilians of the small Central American nation ravaged by civil war for more than a decade.
The bishop will appear at the 9 a.m. service of the Lutheran Church of the Living Word, which worships at the Oakland Mills Interfaith Center in Columbia, and then at the 11 a.m. service of the Lutheran Church of the Holy Comforter, 5513 York Road in Govans.
Gomez is expected to attend a reception at Holy Comforter at 12:30 p.m. Bishop George Mocko, the head of the Delaware-Maryland Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, also will be at the reception, which will follow the morning service.
Both the Church of the Living Word and Holy Comforter are sister parishes of Resurrection Lutheran Church in San Salvador.
Jewish Expo
Up to 100 exhibitors are expected to operate booths at the Baltimore-Washington Jewish Food and Life Expo, this Sunday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. at the Pikesville Armory, 610 Reisterstown Road.
The exhibitors will sell food and arts and crafts items, and will offer information on Jewish religious and cultural customs, such as circumcision ceremonies, bar mitzvahs and weddings. Another booth will give details on a computerized dating network for Jewish singles.
Admission to the expo will be $5 for adults, $2.50 for children under 12 and free for children under two. Proceeds will go to the event's sponsor, the Etz Chaim Center for Jewish Studies, a Jewish cultural organization with branches in Baltimore, Washington and Philadelphia.
Baptist meeting
During next week's convention of Maryland and Delaware Southern Baptists, local church members will meet over dinner to discuss the Southern Baptist Alliance and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, two denominational organizations.
The meeting will take place at 4:30 p.m. this Monday at Chili's Restaurant, 502 Baltimore Pike, Bel Air. Church officials will be on hand to answer questions.
The annual two-state convention will be held Nov. 11 through 13 at Bel Air's Oak Grove Baptist Church.
New CRS chair
Catholic Relief Services, the Baltimore-based overseas relief and development agency of the United States Catholic Conference, has a new chairman of the board.
Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk of Cincinnati, USCC president, has announced that Bishop James A. Griffin of Columbus, Ohio, will take over as CRS board chairman. Griffin succeeds Indianapolis Archbishop Edward T. O'Meara, who resigned because of poor health.
Griffin has been on the CRS board for six years, made frequent visits to CRS programs overseas and served for the past four years as the agency's treasurer.
Education lectures
A four-part lecture series, "Education Marked by the Sign of the Cross: Exploring the Liberal Arts in a Christian Context," begins tomorrow at Loyola College.
James Burtchaell, a professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, will open the series at 4 p.m. in Loyola's McGuire Hall by addressing the question, "What if one wanted to have a Catholic college today?"
The second lecture will be delivered on Feb. 11 by Jean Bethke Elshtain, a professor of political science and philosophy at Vanderbilt University. She will discuss "multiculturalism in higher education."
Robert Wilken, a professor of the history of Christianity at the University of Virginia, will give the third lecture of the series on Feb. 20, speaking on Christianity's intellectual heritage.
The series concludes on April 2 with a talk by the Rev. Michael Buckley, a Jesuit priest who teaches theology at the University of Notre Dame. His topic has not been announced by Loyola.
Send religious news items -- about events, local personalities, etc. -- to Religion Notes, c/o Patrick Ercolano, The Evening Sun, 501 N. Calvert St., Baltimore 21278.