Cesaretti To Fill Public Issues Post
Episcopal News Service. November 15, 1979 [79355]
NEW YORK -- The Rev. Charles A. Cesaretti, since 1976 the Episcopal Church staff officer for hunger, has been appointed the Church's Public Issues Officer.
In making the appointment, Presiding Bishop John M. Allin said Father Cesaretti would be responsible for identifying and researching public issues and helping to coordinate the Church's response. The job will also include staffing responsibility for the Executive Council's committee on Social Responsibility in Investments, as well as other duties formerly assumed by the Church's Public Affairs Officer, the late Rev. W. Alfred Johnson. The post, in the National Mission in Church and Society section, will form part of a team ministry with the social and specialized ministries, hunger and Washington officers.
"I can't say how pleased I am that Father Cesaretti has agreed to share this ministry with us," Bishop Allin said. "Building on his good work in hunger and the fine work done by others in related ministries, I am confident that we can help the Church truly to respond to the mandates of the Gospel, mandates that church people have raised themselves through the General Convention and Executive Council."
Bishop Allin was quick to point out that the position did not mean that the hunger work -- which has become a major concern of the Church -- would suffer. "We hope to find a very able person to fill that post, be part of this team and support and guide the hunger network that has done so much to help us see the Church's role in the hunger issue," he said.
Father Cesaretti explained that the post will involve an attempt to "identify or respond to issues, not in a vacuum, but as they are raised in the Church. For example, it is obvious from the actions of Ceneral Convention that the whole issue of disarmament is a major concern of the Church.
"We will work to analyze this, help to brief the Presiding Bishop and the Council and develop, ecumenically and individually, materials for use in congregations so that the whole Church can be involved in the discussions on which the Convention and Council act."
He cited this as a model for the way in which the office will work and pointed to an example of coordination with other offices: "The hunger network has set as its goal a deep, churchwide examination of lifestyles. As this develops, it will dovetail naturally into the disarmament issue, especially in terms of how both affect human relations and how both are affected by economics. I hope to rely very much on these networks -- hunger, social and specialized ministries and the others -- as channels through which the Church's issues can be raised and explored."
Mrs. Alice Emery, executive for the National Mission section, sees the Public Issues office as a logical extension of the work that has developed in the staff since 1976. "Since then, we've worked more and more through networks and in helping people to respond to and understand issues they have perceived. We hope Father Cesaretti will be able to help the Church initiate new roles and also help fill a cooperative role as the networks and staff sections work more and more closely together."
Father Cesaretti joined the staff in June, 1976 as the first Hunger Officer. Since that time, the National Hunger Committee, which was formed at the same time, has developed a network that reaches into every diocese of the Church, provided curricula for congregational use and encouraged a philosophy that allows church people to respond to hunger on personal, small group or corporate levels.
A graduate of Rutgers University and the Philadelphia Divinity School, the new staff officer also holds a Th. M. degree and has done work toward a Ph.D. at Princeton Theological Seminary. He was ordained deacon and priest in 1965 and has served parishes in Plainfield, Linden and Westfield, N.J. He has served as a regional coordinator in Christian education and as a consultant in that field to the Diocese of New Jersey and the Executive Council.
Mrs. Emery said a search is being undertaken for Father Cesaretti's successor in the Hunger Office.