The Southern California Ecumenical Council installed a...

The Southern California Ecumenical Council installed a layman this week as its first new executive director in seven years.

Charles Jones, who has been active in the United Methodist Church, succeeds the Rev. Eugene Boutilier, who came to the job in 1981. Boutilier, a United Church of Christ minister, had been working part time for United Way. As of Dec. 1, he began full-time work with that organization.

Although more than a dozen Protestant and Orthodox denominations belong to the council, the cooperative body now in its 75th year has been poorly funded in recent years. Jones said that during 1988 he will fill two half-time jobs--executive director of the council and director of its disaster earthquake response committee.

Jones, who turns 39 next week, was previously general manager of Express Transportation Service.

The council, known for many years as the Southern California Council of Churches, has offices in the downtown office building owned and occupied by the Los Angeles First United Methodist Church.

HOLIDAYS

Protestants and Roman Catholics open Holy Week services Sunday with Palm Sunday services, recalling the Gospel stories of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and his subsequent arrest, trial, crucifixion and resurrection. Meanwhile, the Jewish eight-day celebration of Passover, reflections on biblical descriptions of the Jewish exodus from Egypt to the Promised Land, will begin at sundown Friday.

DATES

Former Jehovah’s Witnesses, including ex-governing body member Raymond Franz, will conduct a one-day seminar 8 a.m. Sunday at Pasadena City College. The sponsor, Christian Renewal Ministries, says the meeting is designed to help ex-members “rebuild their lives.”

The Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese announced this week that it will hold a major religious celebration focusing on the Virgin Mary and the rosary May 15 at the Hollywood Bowl. The plans were reminiscent of the archdiocese’s old “Mary’s Hour” celebrations, which drew 100,000 to the Memorial Coliseum in 1954 but drew progressively smaller crowds until it was canceled two decades later.

PEOPLE

Father Ronald Royer, pastor of Lakewood’s San Pancratius Catholic parish, has been named one of the top 10 astrophotographers in the world by Astronomy magazine, according to the Los Angeles Catholic newspaper, the Tidings. Royer, 55, photographed Halley’s Comet in 1986 with his 12.5-inch reflector telescope in small dome near his rectory, but he travels into isolated areas for deep-sky photography. The priest is noted for his experiments with a process of making three black-and-white images with different filters to produce a single color image.