J. Jon Bruno

J. Jon Bruno
Bishop of Los Angeles
Henry Nicholas and Bishop Bruno at a Habitat for Humanity worksite, January 16, 2010
Church	Episcopal Church
See	Los Angeles
In office	2002 — present
Predecessor	Frederick Borsch
Successor	incumbent
Orders
Ordination	1978
Consecration	29 April 2000
Personal details
Born	November 17, 1946 Los Angeles
Previous post	Los Angeles Bishop Coadjutor

Joseph Jon Bruno (born November 17, 1946) is the Episcopal Bishop of Los Angeles.

Early life and education

Joseph Jon Bruno was born in Los Angeles on November 17, 1946 to Dorothy and Joseph J. Bruno. Together with his sister, Bruno was raised in Los Angeles and attended local city schools.

Bruno holds a license in criminology from California State University, Long Beach (1972) and a bachelor's degree in physical education from the California State University, Los Angeles (1974). 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.

Bruno was a police officer in the city of Burbank, California. 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.

Priesthood

Bruno was ordained to the priesthood in 1978 in the Diocese of Los Angeles by its fourth bishop, the Rt. Rev. Robert Claflin Rusack.

From 1977 to 1979, Bruno was parish associate at St. Patrick's Church in Thousand Oaks, California. He was associate at St. Mary's Church in Eugene, Oregon from 1979 to 1980, while concurrently vicar of St. Teresa's in Junction City, Oregon. 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, 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 of this congregation, Bruno continued his advocacy for youth and families, for gang diversion, and for immigration equity, and worked in the wider sphere of human rights.

He served for 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. While provost, Bruno chaired the board of the Episcopal Community Federal Credit Union. He was vice-chair of the Nehemiah West Housing Corporation, which has built 300 single-family dwellings for purchase by low- and moderate-income families.

Bruno was elected Bishop Coadjutor of the Diocese of Los Angeles on November 13, 1999. Within Episcopal Church polity, a bishop coadjutor is elected to succeed a diocesan bishop at such time as the latter chooses to retire.

From 1990 to 1993, Bruno served the Diocese of Los Angeles as its missioner for stewardship and development. He was an elected deputy to the national church's 2000 General Convention, having assisted in the convention's operations and security services for several years.

He is founder of the Institute for Urban Research and Development, the work of which is now related to Episcopal Housing and Economic Development, an institution of the Diocese of Los Angeles.

As bishop, Bruno has launched the "Hands in Healing" initiative for education and action related to eradicating violence in local, regional, national, and international contexts.

Bruno is a member of the wider Episcopal Church's Executive Council, as well as the Los Angeles Council of Religious Leaders. He is board chairman and honorary chairman of various diocesan institutions.

Bishop

Bruno was ordained to the episcopate on April 29, 2000, in a liturgy at the Los Angeles Convention Center. He was seated on February 1, 2002, surrounded by more than 1,000 Episcopalians and guests who joined hands around Echo Park Lake.

He is the first native Angeleno to be elected Bishop of the Diocese of Los Angeles, which was established in 1895.

Personal information

A resident of Pasadena, California, Bruno is married to Mary Bruno, a law administrator and human resources professional in Los Angeles. Their family includes three adult children and five grandchildren.

Church and philosophy

The Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Los Angeles serves 70,000 Episcopalians in 148 congregations located in Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara, and Ventura counties, and part of Riverside County. Served by some 400 clergy, the diocese also includes over 40 Episcopal schools and some 20 social-service and chaplaincy institutions.

The diocese promotes affordable housing and entrepreneurship in Southern California through the Episcopal Housing Alliance and Economic Development.^[1] A major project is Chefs Center of California, a small-business incubator in Pasadena, California, that enables culinary entrepreneurs to start and accelerate the successful growth of their enterprises. Primary financial support for the Chefs Center is provided by the Henry T. Nicholas, III Foundation, which has contributed $1,350,000 to the incubator.

Bruno, in collaboration with the Reverend Bryan Jones of Long Beach, published a full-page advertisement in the Los Angeles Times's "California" section, on July 23, 2006. Titled Open Hearted, Open Minded Christianity, the tract called for an inclusive Christianity based on loving God and loving one's neighbor as oneself. With Malcolm Boyd, Bruno is co-author of the book In Times Like These: How We Pray (New York: Church Publishing, 2005).

Bruno has called for Southland Episcopalians to be people on a mission for the Christian faith. At the outset of his tenure as bishop, he identified the "FACTS" of such a mission to be Formation in faith, a sense of the Abundance of God's generosity, Competence, Truth and Service. In his call to mission, Bruno encourages clergy and laypeople to "plan and prepare for God's service; work for abundance; and care for the community as we would care for Jesus."

References

External links

• Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles website
• Parishes of the Diocese of Los Angeles
• Episcopal Church USA official website