J. Jon Bruno
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The Right Reverend Joseph Jon Bruno is the Episcopal Bishop of Los Angeles. He was seated February 1, 2002 surrounded by more than 1,000 Episcopalians and guests surrounding Echo Park Lake.
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| Denomination | The Episcopal Church |
| Senior posting | |
| See | Los Angeles |
| Title | Bishop of Los Angeles |
| Period in office | 2002 — present |
| Predecessor | Frederick Borsch |
| Successor | incumbent |
| Religious career | |
| Priestly ordination | 1978 |
| Previous bishoprics | Los Angeles |
| Previous post | Bishop Coadjutor |
| Personal | |
| Date of birth | |
| Place of birth | |
Among priorities that Bishop Bruno has set for his episcopate is his call to Southland Episcopalians to be people of mission for the Christian faith. He has identified the “facts” of such mission as formation in faith, a sense of the abundance of God’s generosity, competence, truth and service. In his call to mission, Bishop Bruno encourages clergy and laypersons to “plan and prepare for God’s service, work for abundance; and care for the community as we would care for Jesus.”
A resident of Pasadena, California, Bishop Bruno is married to Mary Bruno, a law administrator in Los Angeles and a long-time human-resources professional. Their family includes three adult children—Jonelle Bruno, Philip Bruno and Brent Woodrich—daughter-in-law Andrea Woodrich, and two grandchildren.
Bruno was elected Bishop Coadjutor of the six-county Diocese of Los Angeles on Nov. 13, 1999. Within Episcopal Church polity, a Bishop Coadjutor is elected to succeed a Bishop Diocesan at such time as the latter chooses to retire.
Bishop Bruno was ordained to the episcopate on April 29, 2000, in a liturgy at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Prior to his ministry as Bishop Coadjutor, he served for some eight years as Provost of the Cathedral Center of St. Paul, Los Angeles, and as Pastor to its multilingual Congregation of St. Athanasius, which dates from 1864 as the oldest Episcopal parish in Southern California. He was named rector of St. Athanasius’ Parish in 1986, and there collaborated with Bishop Borsch in construction of the Cathedral Center on the parish’s lakefront site in the Echo Park district of Los Angeles. As pastor in this congregation, Bishop Bruno continued his longstanding advocacy for youth and families, for gang diversion, for immigration equity and in the wider sphere of human rights.
While Provost, Bishop Bruno also chaired the board of the Episcopal Community Federal Credit Union; he was vice-chair of the Nehemiah West Housing Corp., which has built some 300 single-family dwellings for purchase by low- and moderate-income families. He is also founder of the Institute for Urban Research and Development, an institution of the Diocese of Los Angeles.
From 1990 to 1993, Bishop Bruno also served the Diocese of Los Angeles by strengthening its fiscal resources as its missioner for stewardship and development. He was also an elected deputy to the national church’s 2000 General Convention, having assisted in the Convention’s operations and security services for several years prior.
Bishop Bruno has served as a priest in urban, suburban and rural settings. From 1977 to 1979, he was parish associate at St. Patrick’s Church in Thousand Oaks, Calif. He was then associate from 1979 to 1980 at St. Mary’s Church in Eugene, Oregon, during which time he was concurrently vicar of St. Teresa’s, Junction City, Oregon. While in the Northwest, he was active both in building church facilities and new congregations. In 1980, he left St. Mary's to help form St. Matthew's Church, also in Eugene, where he served as Vicar for several years before returning to California. From 1983 to 1986, he was associate at St. Paul’s Church in Pomona.
Bishop Bruno was ordained to the priesthood in 1978 in the Diocese of Los Angeles by its fourth bishop, the Rt. Rev. Robert Claflin Rusack. He holds a Master of Divinity degree (1977) from the Virginia Theological Seminary, which also awarded him an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree in 2001. The Bishop holds a bachelor’s degree in physical education from California State University, Los Angeles (1974), and a license in criminology from California State University, Long Beach (1972).
Prior to his ordination, Bishop Bruno was a police officer in the city of Burbank, Calif. He was also briefly a professional football player under contract to the Denver Broncos before an injury sustained early on prevented further activity with the team. Joseph Jon Bruno was born Nov. 17, 1946, in Los Angeles to Dorothy and Joseph J. Bruno. Together with his sister, Bishop Bruno was raised in Los Angeles and attended local city schools. He is the first native Angeleno to be elected Bishop of the Diocese of Los Angeles, which was established formally in 1895.
The Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Los Angeles today encompasses 85,000 Episcopalians in 148 congregations located in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. Served by some 400 clergy, the Diocese also includes some 40 Episcopal schools and some 20 social-service and chaplaincy institutions.
[edit] Controversy
Bishop Bruno has recently barred the clergy of St. Luke's of the Mountains Church from performing their religious duties, a day after the parish in La Crescenta, California announced it would secede from the national Episcopal Church. The congregation voted to separate from the Episcopal Church (USA) and its Los Angeles diocese in particular, citing major theological differences. (Note that this link has been tampered with and will go to a blank page)
St. Luke's church voted in favor of separating from the Episcopal Church (USA) and joining with the Anglican Communion under the jurisdiction of the Ugandan diocese. The church will be under the authority of the greater Anglican Church through Archbishop Henry Orombi of the Anglican Province of Uganda and Bishop Evans Kisekka of the Diocese of Luwero.
St. Luke's is the fourth parish to break away from the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles in the past two years, including St. James in Newport Beach, All Saints' in Long Beach and St. David's in North Hollywood. All have cited the same reasons as St. Luke's for leaving. Bishop Bruno issued inhibitions against the clergy at all three of those churches, and they were all subsequently fired from the Episcopal Church.
Bishop Bruno in collaboration with the Reverend Bryan Jones of Long Beach recently published (7-23-2006), as a full page advertisement in the Los Angeles Times, California section, "Open Hearted, Open Minded Christianity" which calls for an inclusive Christianity based on loving God and loving one's neighbor as oneself - the commandments that Jesus is reported to have identified as greater than all other scripture.
| Preceded by: |
Episcopal Bishop of Los Angeles | Followed by: |
