wfn.org | Bautista to head U.N. ministry

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS" by SUSAN PEEK on Aug. 11, 1991 at 13:58 Eastern,
about FULL TEXT RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (3204 notes).

Note 3204 modified by UMNS on Oct. 2, 1996 at 15:49 Eastern (2801 characters).

SEARCH:   United Nations, human rights, ecumenical, Bautista,
               Philippines
Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency of
the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn., New
York, and Washington.

Contact:  Joretta Purdue                      490(10-32-71B){3204}
          Washington, D.C.  (202) 546-8722            Oct. 2, 1996

Filipino layman to head
United Nations ministry

     WASHINGTON (UMNS) -- The social action and advocacy agency of
the United Methodist Church has named a layman from the
Philippines to head its United Nations ministry.
     Liberato C. Bautista, 37, a lay member of the Philippines
Central Conference, will begin his work as assistant general
secretary of the Board of Church and Society near the end of 1996.
     He is currently enrolled in an ethics and politics doctoral
program at United Methodist-related Drew University, Madison, N.J.
     Bautista is the first member of a Central Conference to serve
on the board staff. Central Conferences are regional organizations
of the denomination outside the United States. He succeeds the
Rev. Robert McClean, who retired at the end of 1995 after filling
the position for more than two decades.
     A writer, editor, lecturer and trainer, Bautista has worked
with national and international issues. Human rights issues in the
Philippines were an important part of his work for a number of
years, including a period of martial law under Ferdinand Marcos.
     "It was a time," Bautista said, "when church and ecumenical
witness to justice, peace and human rights was tried and tested
the most."
     As national coordinator of the human rights program of the
National Council of Churches in the Philippines, Bautista
developed its human rights curriculum and taught human rights
courses in communities, churches, colleges and universities.
     He also participated in international ecumenical
organizations, serving on the International Affairs Committee of
the Christian Conference of Asia for five years and working with
the World Council of Churches, Lutheran World Federation and the
European Council of Churches.
     Bautista has been active as a United Methodist. In 1983 he
was a voting delegate of the United Methodist Church to the World
Council of Churches' Sixth Assembly in Vancouver, Canada. He has
been secretary of the Philippines Central Conference and national
president of the United Methodist Youth Fellowship of the
Philippines.
     The Board of Church and Society headquarters is in
Washington. Its United Nations ministry is located at the Church
Center for the United Nations in New York.
     Bautista and his wife, Adora Angeles-Bautista, have two
children.
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