Bishop John Harvey Taylor marked the one-year anniversary of the 2025 devastating Los Angeles area wildfires with prayer and visits to the communities most impacted, he reported to Diocesan Council at its Jan. 8 meeting via Zoom.
Taylor began Council’s first 2026 meeting with prayers for “all that the victims lost, the death of a score or more of our neighbors, especially those living in West Altadena, underserved by emergency notification services,” and with thanksgiving for everyone who helped the victims.
The 2026 Diocesan Disaster Recovery and Resilience Program is underway, focusing on aid to underserved communities through partnerships with the Seeds of Hope diocesan food justice ministry, the Episcopal Community Federal Credit Union’s economic justice ministry, Dr. Lucy Jones’ resilience program, Episcopal Relief and Development, and other community groups, according to Grace Wakelee-Lynch, diocesan missioner for recovery and resilience.
The wildfires, which destroyed St. Mark’s Church in Altadena, school buildings and clergy residences at St. Matthew’s, Pacific Palisades, a sober-living home in Altadena, and threatened the MonteCedro retirement community, were also remembered in song, music, prayer and word at a Jan. 11 diocesan Climate Evensong (see related story) created by Jones and hosted by All Saints Church in Pasadena.
Council members re-elected Samantha Wylie convention secretary and were invited to attend both the 4 p.m. Jan. 18 annual diocesan Martin Luther King Day celebration at Christ the Good Shepherd Church.
One-year later; continued recovery, resilience and challenge
Taylor reported an “inestimably sacred feeling” while attending worship at St. Mark’s temporary home in Eagle Rock, at St. Matthew’s, Pacific Palisades, and the MonteCedro retirement community in Altadena, which was not damaged, but where residents were evacuated.
The Altadena church was destroyed and school buildings sustained catastrophic damage in the Eaton fire. A “Rebuild St. Mark’s” online fundraiser has raised $2.5 million toward a $3 million goal.
In Pacific Palisades, Taylor joined chapel services and a concert “that was standing room only in the restored nave of St. Matthew’s Church” and featured music provided by members of the Los Angeles Master Chorale and the L.A. Philharmonic.
While St. Matthew’s clergy lost homes, the main sanctuary and several key buildings survived the fire, but many parts of the campus remain damaged and unusable. Classes are being held in locations in Santa Monica and West Los Angeles. The school has announced plans to re-open in the fall of 2026 after multi-million-dollar repairs.
The recovery is both “institutional and personal,” with affected communities reliving the trauma daily, Taylor said. Those impacted by the ongoing ICE raids are also experiencing daily trauma and a sense of catastrophe, as are members of the LGBTQ+, Trans and nonbinary community who feel they are targeted by the current federal government.
“We have an incarnational responsibility through the Body of Christ and through our participation in the Body of Christ, to step across the barriers of political, ideological, cultural, economic, language, racial and ethnic difference” to support one another, Taylor said.
Wakelee-Lynch said her first few months on the job have been spent getting to know the community. “I’m hoping to continue that as an essential piece of this work as we move into some of these more concrete projects as well, and I’m just really grateful for the opportunity to be here kind of supporting this recovery process,” she said.
The diocesan program aims to help those who are either underserved or ineligible for traditional disaster recovery resources. In addition to the Rev. Payton Hoegh, who will provide emotional and spiritual support, environmental justice research consultant Whitney White has joined her staff, she said.
White, who grew up at St. Barnabas Church in Pasadena and is an alumna of St. Mark’s School, is helping to facilitate data collections and needs assessment, and to build connections with other groups in the area, she said.
The program will also include support for food distributions, a pilot program with the Episcopal Community Federal Credit Union to provide ethical financing support, interest rate buybacks, financial education and counseling throughout the recovery process. “We are also looking at supporting a couple of projects that are more Eaton-specific, around helping communities of color that were impacted in Pasadena and Altadena keep their land in their community,” Wakelee-Lynch said.
“We’re also working with Dr. Lucy Jones to expand and deliver some of the preparedness programming that she has created at her center on a wider scale throughout the diocese,”
including ongoing trauma informed disaster response training and support for impacted lay and clergy leaders.
Finances: overall, positive
Canon Dan Valdez, interim treasurer of the diocese, said the diocese is “essentially on budget for November 2025,” the latest month reported. Mission Share Fund (MSF) assessments were about $154,000 over budget. There is income of about $549,000 in Corp Sole in proceeds from a nonsacred property sale, and withdrawals from the Diocesan Investment Trust were about $473,000 below the budgeted amount “primarily because those funds are not needed at this time, because our overall financial performance is doing relatively well.”
Rentals at St. Paul’s Commons as well as administrative fees reimbursed by IRIS and Seeds of Hope contributed to an increase of about $183,000 in Corporation of the Diocese funds, he said. Meanwhile, cost efficiencies and reduction in the bishop’s office of $192,000 were offset by unanticipated diocesan convention expenses of about $47,000.
Charlotte Borst, reporting for the Corporation of the Diocese, praised Taylor’s leadership in requiring 12% assessments from parish congregations net operating income from two years prior, and 10% in plate and pledge for missions. Previously, the 12% assessment, typical in most dioceses, had been regarded as voluntary.
“That required acts of enormous bravery from a whole lot of people, but hearing Canon Valdez’s report and seeing the fruits of our labor coming to bear good, good fruit, I am grateful, Bishop, for your leadership,” Borst said.
Reports of mission
Canon Janet Wylie reported the Standing Committee re-elected the Rev. Dr. Kate Cress, rector of St. James’ Church in Los Angeles, as 2026 president, and elected Wylie as secretary with Rose Hayden-Smith assisting. The committee consented to the elections of North Dakota Bishop Shay Craig; East Carolina Bishop Sarah Fisher; Western Massachusetts Bishop Miguelina Howell, and Los Angeles Bishop Antonio Gallardo.
The committee also approved a three-year license agreement for Grace Church in Glendora and a two-year license renewal between the diocese and the Immaculate Heart Community. A meeting of the consecration and transition committees is set for early February to begin facilitating details of the July 11, 2026, consecration of Bishop-elect Antonio Gallardo, she said.
Canon Christine Budzowsi, reporting on behalf of Episcopal Church Women, said she intends to contact women leaders in congregations, deanery by deanery, to bring people together, to connect with fundraising, service projects and other celebrations.
Secretary of Convention Canon Steve Nishibayashi reported that the portal is open for filing parochial reports, which are due March 1.
Council meets again at 4 p.m., Thursday, February 12, via Zoom.