Sister Mary Milligan, a prominent Catholic educator...

Sister Mary Milligan, a prominent Catholic educator in Los Angeles, has been selected by the Vatican as one of three U.S. experts to assist in the monthlong October proceedings of the Synod of Bishops in Rome.

Milligan, 52, a member of the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary order, is provost of Loyola Marymount University, where she teaches New Testament and is president of the board at St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo.

Though two other American advisers picked by the Vaticanare known as theological conservatives, Milligan said she is uncomfortable with that label, or any label. “I suppose I’m a moderate. It depends on what the issue is, and, secondly, it depends on the perspective of others,” she said.

The other two Vatican choices were William May, a theology professor at Catholic University of America in Washington, and Jesuit Father Joseph Fessio, head of St. Ignatius Press in San Francisco. Fessio was dismissed last June as director of the University of San Francisco’s St. Ignatius Institute in a disagreement over financial management. Catholic conservatives have maintained that the firing was part of a liberal-conservative struggle at the Jesuit university and community there.

Milligan said she did not know if there are other women among the 20 theologians invited to the international synod by the Vatican. However, a laywoman, Dolores Leckey, executive director of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on the Laity, will be going as one of the two experts chosen by the four American bishops elected by fellow prelates to represent the U.S. church.

The Vatican selects up to 15% of the delegates worldwide, and, in this case, added Arcbhishops Anthony J. Bevilacqua of Pittsburgh and Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles to the U.S. delegation. In his recent pastoral letter on women, Mahony cited Milligan’s post as board president of the archdiocesan seminary as an example of women moving up in Los Angeles church circles. However, Milligan said she did not know whether she was recommended by Mahony, and the archbishop was unavailable for comment.

HOLIDAY

The High Holy Days of the Jewish calendar begin with Rosh Hashanah services in synagogues Wednesday evening. The observant Jew “takes moral inventory and determines where he missed the mark--first toward fellow human beings and then toward God--and is commanded to ask their forgiveness,” said Rabbi Lawrence J. Goldmark of Temple Beth Or in La Mirada. Yom Kippur services, concluding the penitent period, will be Friday night, Oct. 2, and Saturday morning, Oct. 3.

DATES

The National Religious Broadcasters’ three-day western regional conference will start Sunday at the Los Angeles Marriott Hotel. The meeting will close Tuesday evening with a banquet, open to the public, featuring religious talk show host Marlin Maddoux of Dallas as speaker.

PEOPLE

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