The Catholic Church would consider opposing the San Fernando Valley's secession from Los Angeles if it represented an attempt by the middle class to shake off the urban poor, but otherwise is unlikely to take sides on the secular political issue, said the Encino priest ordained Wednesday as bishop of the Valley region.
"We would take a position only if in some way it affected human dignity for the worse," said the Most Rev. Gerald Wilkerson.
Wilkerson, 58, was given his bishop's miter, staff and ring by Cardinal Roger M. Mahony in English- and Spanish-language rites attended by 23 bishops and scores of priests.
Wilkerson was named in November as an auxiliary bishop for the San Fernando Pastoral Region, an area with an estimated 765,000 Catholics that would be the second-largest diocese in California if it were split from the Los Angeles archdiocese. The region, with headquarters in Mission Hills, covers the San Fernando, Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys, and reaches as far to the south and east as Eagle Rock and Highland Park.
Wilkerson, addressing the crowd of about 1,000 onlookers at the end of the two-hour ordination and Mass, said the sheer responsibility of spiritual and administrative oversight of three-quarters of a million Catholics was enough to give him "cold feet" after he learned that the pope had chosen him for the position.
"I went to my spiritual advisor and told him, 'It's all a mistake; you've got the wrong man'--and he agreed with me!" said Wilkerson, eliciting laughter from the pews.
"But he said, 'It's not what you do for God, but what God does through you.' "
Wilkerson said he was also assured about the same time by Mahony--who wrote from Rome, where he was co-presiding over a bishops meeting--that the Long Beach native was the right man for the job.
Indeed, Wilkerson had been functioning since mid-1996 as episcopal vicar, or acting bishop, for the region after the Vatican assigned Auxiliary Bishop Armando X. Ochoa to head the El Paso diocese.
The authority of a regional bishop in the Los Angeles archdiocese--which has five regions in Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties--is limited. "The ultimate buck stops at the cardinal's desk, although his idea is to have as much regionalization as possible so that we can truly become closer to the people," Wilkerson said.
Asked what his plans are for the region, the bishop said he won't have any until he can consult the laity, clergy and nuns in his jurisdiction.
