Bishops Named to California Posts

The Rev. Mary Ann Swenson, who has been bishop of the United Methodist Church in Denver for eight years, will succeed the Rev. Roy I. Sano as regional bishop of the Los Angeles area Sept. 1.

Swenson will oversee the church throughout Southern California, Hawaii and Guam. Sano, 69, is retiring.

Meanwhile, the Rev. Beverly Shamana, who has been program director for ethnic and outreach ministries in Pasadena, has been elected as a bishop and will succeed the Rev. Melvin Talbert as bishop of the Sacramento-based California-Nevada Annual Conference, with jurisdiction over Northern and Central California and northern Nevada.

Swenson, 53, and Shamana, 60, were two of six bishops to be assigned areas of service for the next four years by the church’s 12-state Western Jurisdictional Conference, which met in Casper, Wyo., last week. The church’s bishops are elected for life but are assigned to areas of service for four-year terms.

In succeeding Talbert, Shamana will take charge of a region of the church that has been torn by controversy over whether to bless same-sex unions.

Last year, 68 Methodist ministers defied church law by uniting a lesbian couple in Sacramento. Charges were brought against them by traditionalists. Talbert, who said he personally supported the ministers’ actions, said that as bishop he had no choice but to enforce church law and forward the complaint to a church court. The judicial panel eventually dismissed the charges.

In an interview, Shamana, who grew up in Pasadena, said she largely shares Talbert’s view. “I certainly am in favor of the full sexuality that God has given us,” she said. “I don’t draw the line between how people express their sexuality.” But she said as a bishop she expected to uphold church discipline.

Shamana said she intends to confer with conservative congregations and evangelical pastors in the California-Nevada conference that have left or are threatening to leave the denomination because of their opposition to same-sex unions.

“One thing I will do immediately is to meet with those pastors and to try to hear their concerns and to see if there are ways we can stay at the table,” she said.