Pope Names Encino Pastor Auxiliary Bishop for Valley

ENCINO — Pope John Paul II has named an Encino pastor, Msgr. Gerald Wilkerson, a new auxiliary bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, with special responsibility for the San Fernando Valley area.

The papal appointment, announced Wednesday by Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, fills an opening that has been vacant for 16 months and brings to five the number of auxiliary bishops in the nation’s largest Roman Catholic archdiocese.

Wilkerson, 59, will oversee the archdiocese’s San Fernando Pastoral Region, which includes about 50 parishes from Palmdale to Woodland Hills to Highland Park.

Wilkerson was considered the leading candidate to succeed Bishop Armando X. Ochoa, who was named the bishop of El Paso last year. Mahony had immediately appointed Wilkerson as the interim administrator of the region, headquartered in Mission Hills.

Like all auxiliary bishops in the archdiocese, Wilkerson will report to Mahony. He will be consecrated in January at the 2,400-member Our Lady of Grace Church in Encino, where he has been senior pastor for the last dozen years.

In his inaugural news conference as a bishop-elect, Wilkerson spoke of the “joyful call” to the priesthood and poked fun at himself by saying he was first shocked and then terrified when told he was to be made a bishop.

In fact, he said that he slept only three hours the night the word came from Rome a week ago and that he hasn’t had a good night’s sleep since. He telephoned his parents in Long Beach to tell them the news Wednesday.

“I’ve faced the struggles and trials and tribulations that anyone who is human faces in this world,” Wilkerson told reporters, as Mahony stood by his side. “But still I would never leave my call. It’s given purpose and meaning to my life. My priesthood has been the joy of my life.”

His only regret, he said, was that as a bishop he would lose the privilege of being invited by parishioners to share the ups and downs of their lives on a daily basis.

At a time when the church is dealing with a shortage of priests as well as other issues, Wilkerson said he had no illusions about the hardships ahead.

“I think it’s a very difficult job. I think in days past it was an honor. Everybody wanted that honor. I think today there are many challenges, as there are for priests . . . and for all of us,” he said.

“The challenges have changed and are very different, and to be asked to give some kind of direction and leadership to that is terrifying at this stage of the game.”

Mahony, who recommended Wilkerson’s long-expected appointment to the pope, said Wilkerson has exercised “superb leadership” in the San Fernando region while still tending to pastoral duties at his Encino parish.

“I have often called upon him to head up special committees to deal with new and emerging problems,” Mahony said, “and he has willingly and with great competence undertaken all of these tasks with pastoral generosity and zeal.”

Wilkerson serves on the archdiocese’s financial council and on the editorial council that oversees the archdiocese’s weekly newspaper, The Tidings.

Born in Des Moines, but reared in California, Wilkerson was ordained a priest in 1965 after studying at St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo. He served as associate pastor at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in La Habra, St. Michael Church in Los Angeles, and American Martyrs Church in Manhattan Beach.

For the past 15 years, he has served at Our Lady of Grace Church, first as administrator beginning in 1982, and as its pastor since 1985. The news was greeted with a mixture of emotions at the brick-faced, red-tile-roofed church at Ventura Boulevard and White Oak Avenue.

“The San Fernando Valley’s gain is our loss,” said Sister Anne Paul Clare, principal of the parish’s 336-student elementary school. “It’s been a joy to work with him.”

Despite the bishop-elect’s heavy work schedule for the last 16 months, Clare said, Wilkerson insisted on teaching a religion class once a week to seventh- and eighth-graders.

The priest said his parish, like others in the Valley, has attempted to change with the shifting demographics of the neighborhood. Our Lady of Grace Parish began a Spanish-language Mass in 1991, which is now attended by about 500 people weekly.

Wilkerson speaks some Spanish, according to Sister Maggie Laval, coordinator of the Hispanic ministry at the Encino parish. “He says more with his heart than he does with his mouth,” she said.

On Nov. 15, the parish will host its first-ever Spanish-language retreat with hundreds of people expected to register, Laval said.

Although Wilkerson was told of his appointment a week ago, his associate pastor, Father Michael Sears, did not learn of it until late Wednesday.

“I figured he would get named,” Sears said. “He had all the qualifications and he was already doing the job.”

Sears lauded what he called Wilkerson’s fairness and work ethic. “He did 48 confirmations around the region in a seven-week period after last Easter,” Sears said.

The appointment was also greeted by other pastors.

“There were four very happy priests over here when we heard the announcement,” said Msgr. Paul T. Dotson of Woodland Hills, referring to himself and three other priests at St. Bernardine of Siena Catholic Church. “He’s one of our own--he went to our [archdiocesan] seminary and he’s been a pastor.”

In Lancaster, Msgr. Timothy O’Connell of Sacred Heart Catholic Church praised the bishop-elect as a skilled leader who was already “very sensitive to the Antelope Valley and the needs of the three churches we have here.”