Banners welcoming the Franciscans in 12 languages...

Banners welcoming the Franciscans in 12 languages greeted 150 brothers and priests from around the world this week as they streamed onto the canopy-covered tennis courts at San Luis Rey Mission in Oceanside for a huge outdoor Mass. The occasion celebrated the election of a German friar, Father Hermann Friedhelm Schalueck, as minister general of the Order of Friars Minor, the formal name for the Franciscans.

Schalueck, 52, for the next six years will oversee the 19,214 Franciscans living and working in 93 countries. He was elected by delegates to the order’s highest voting body during its monthlong meeting at the University of San Diego. It was the group’s first meeting in North America, timed to mark the 500th anniversary of the order’s arrival in the Americas in 1492. The Franciscan order, one of the largest male religious bodies in the Roman Catholic Church, was founded by St. Francis of Assisi in 1209.

The brown-robed delegates also celebrated a Mass last week in Mission San Diego de Acala, established in 1769 by Franciscan Junipero Serra, his first in California.

Schalueck, who since 1985 has served in Rome representing the order in Western Europe, succeeds Father John Vaughn, a Santa Ana native who had completed two six-year terms and was ineligible for reelection.

In an interview before his election, Schalueck--who speaks six languages--said that in the modern world friars must teach in a variety of cultures about the environment, consumerism and other contemporary problems and issues. “We have to evangelize not just to people but to creation,” he said. “We have to create a consciousness for a world that has other trends.”

After the colorful outdoor mass at Mission San Luis Rey--largest in the California chain and known as the King of the Missions--the brothers and priests relaxed at a Great Western Barbecue on the mission’s park-like grounds. The friars will end their conference on July 1 in San Diego.

DATES

President Bush has prepared a two-minute videotape for Muslims in the United States who are marking a major Islamic holiday, Id-ul-Udha (Fast of Sacrifice), which begins this morning. The holiday coincides with the haj or pilgrimage to Mecca. More than 1.5 million Muslims make the pilgrimage annually, following the fifth pillar of Islam commanding the commemoration of the prophet Abraham’s offering of his son, Isaac, in sacrifice to Allah. About 10,000 Southland Muslims were expected to meet beginning at 7 a.m. today for prayers and festivities at the Islamic Center of Southern California on Vermont Avenue in Los Angeles. Other ceremonies were scheduled at 7 a.m. at Cal State Northridge’s Oviatt Lawn and in Fairplex-3 at the Los Angeles County Fairground in Pomona (Gate 14). An Id-ul-Udha picnic will be held from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday at Prado Park in Chino. Bush, the first U. S. President to recognize the international Islamic occasion, said in the videotaped message: “As children of Abraham, American Muslims gather today to honor their ancient faith. As Americans, your celebration affirms this nation’s allegiance to religious freedom for all.”

PEOPLE

A woman minister who has worked with farm workers in Florida and with President Corazon Aquino in the Philippines has been named pastor of the First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles. The Rev. Linnea Juanita Pearson, 52, will assume her post Sept. 1, succeeding the Rev. Philip Zwerling, who became pastor of the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Tucson in January, 1990, and interim minister Alfred Henriksen. Pearson, now co-director of the National Farm Worker Ministry in Florida, holds a Ph.D in Literature and Religion from Northern Illinois University and a Master of Sacred Theology degree from Harvard Divinity School. She is the author of “Separate Paths: Why People End Their Lives” and is writing a book about her meetings with Aquino and the 1985 “Peaceful Revolution” that brought Aquino to power. Pearson has served churches in Gainesville and Miami, Fla., and is secretary of the denomination’s Society for the Larger Ministry.

EVENT

The Very Rev. Leonid Kishkovsky, an Orthodox priest who is president of the National Council of Churches, opened the General Assembly of the Korean Presbyterian Church in America when it met for three days in Bellflower this week. The Korean immigrant denomination, which in 1986 became the first Asian body to be admitted to the New York-based National Council, includes 220 churches--more than a fourth of them in Southern California. Kishkovsky, an archpriest of the Orthodox Church in America, is a graduate of USC and a native of Poland. He is serving a two-year term as head of the nation’s primary ecumenical organization, which represents 32 Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican communions with a combined membership of 42 million. Kishkovsky also spoke at the ordination this week of Nicholas C. Chun, general secretary of the Korean Presbyterian Church in America, held at Young Nak Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles. Chun is a member of Young Nak, which, with an average attendance of 5,000 at its Sunday services and classes, is said to be the largest Korean congregation outside of Korea.