“FOBs —Friends of Bob” Williams gathered from east to west, and from near and far for a “40 Love” Feb. 10, 2026, online service of Evening Prayer, celebrating the canon for common life’s “rare gift of being able to serve this diocese and The Episcopal Church” for 40 years.
“Today is the actual anniversary of my first day on the job” in 1986 when then Missioner for Communications Ruth Nicastro and Missioner for Administration Peter Mann hired him, Williams told more than 100 ecumenical and interfaith well-wishers, friends, family members and colleagues who gathered for the online service, officiated by Bishop John Harvey Taylor.
Nicastro, whose son Mark and daughter-in-law Robin joined the call, first instructed Williams to sort mail. “We had no email, no internet, no cell phones,” he recalled. “We had one word processor on our floor that was on wheels to serve several offices, and the printer, which sounded like a jackhammer, was right next to my desk.”
Williams succeeded Nicastro as communications director after her 1993 retirement and a national search to fill her position. She died in 2016 at the age of 90. His ministry in the church has taken him to Taiwan, and to Lambeth, the every-10-years gathering of bishops from across the Anglican Communion, and “even to the inner sanctum of Fidel Castro in Cuba, whom he interviewed,” Taylor told the gathering.
“He said he had never taken notes more quickly or at such length, especially because he was taking them in Spanish,” Taylor recalled. Williams’s guidance also has involved incredible service as “one of our region’s most important collaborative practitioners of ecumenical and interfaith work, which is becoming far more important in these particular political and cultural times than it ever has before,” Taylor added.
Raised by maternal grandparents Betty Perry and Bud Markert, Williams and his sister Wendy Vurik, who joined the call, trace their California roots back four generations, Taylor said. Although their grandmother was born into a family of Episcopalians, Williams was noncommittal until “an epiphany moment of a visit to Grace Cathedral in San Francisco in 1980,” he said.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Biola University and a master’s degree in print journalism from the University of Southern California. During his tenure, he has served four Los Angeles diocesan bishops: Robert Rusack; Fred Borsch; Jon Bruno and Taylor; and looks forward to the episcopate of incoming Bishop-elect Antonio José Gallardo Lucena, who joined the call among participants offering readings and prayers.
From 2004 to 2008, Williams was director of The Episcopal Church’s Office of Communication in New York, serving Presiding Bishops Frank Griswold and Katharine Jefferts Schori. During that time he also oversaw the Episcopal News Service, and reported from Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and across the Americas.
Typically, 40-Love evokes images of tennis, in which love means “you’re behind in the game,” Taylor said. “But, if you’re in a 40-love game with Canon Bob Williams, if you’re blessed to be an FOB, as we all are, you’re not behind. You’re always a winner. So, Canon Bob, thank you for making us all winners just by being your friend and your companion in ministry and life.”
Canon for Common Life Bob Williams, pictured in 1986 when he first joined the communications staff of the Diocese of Los Angeles, and on a recent Easter Day at his parish, St. James’ Wilshire, Los Angeles.
Through the years, “the changes in communications work have been remarkable and transformative, and so has the work of the church,” Williams said. “We still have progress to make, but we’ve become significantly more multicultural than we were when I started, much more LGBTQ+ affirming, and we continue to benefit from the ever-increasing ordination of women to holy orders as bishops and as archbishops, especially our new Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullaly.
“This momentum really was just getting started in those early days of 1986. Ruth had just returned from the installation of Presiding Bishop Ed Browning, who famously said, there will be no outcasts in this church.”
Williams recalled friendships with other diocesan notables including the charismatic and prophetic Rev. Canon Dr. George Regas, a longtime rector of All Saints, Pasadena; and the Rev. Canon John H.M. Yamazaki, former St. Mary’s, Mariposa rector, who “recounted what it was like to leave the church when the executive order required that all persons of Japanese descent be transported to internment camps, including the Santa Anita racetrack. He pointed to a picture of a barn there at Santa Anita where he and his family were located.
“He pointed to the barn, and he said, many important things happened there. It was our chapel. Many important things happened there, without going into detail, without any shred of bitterness, but just this poignancy. And this is what I feel about the diocese after 40 years and looking forward, it’s like that barn, many important things happen there.”
Williams also recalled serving with lay leader and civil rights activist Canon Lydia Lopez whose legacy continues at a center bearing her name at Church of the Epiphany, Lincoln Heights. Williams asked for prayers for Barbara Braver, another veteran communicator for The Episcopal Church Center, who defined our work as communicators as “to build community and to make meaning.”
Canon Kathy O’Connor also joined the call, along with many others, including friends from Williams college days, and others from congregations across the diocese.
Williams invited the diocesan community to stay tuned for news of a March 11, 2026, forum to be held at St. Paul’s Common. “It’s a multifaith response to our current constitutional crisis.”
Although he has served 40 years, Williams said retirement is not quite on the horizon. Extending the tennis metaphor, he added that he still intends to, “ace one last point for the win, which will be smoothly transitioning the ministries with which I’ve been entrusted, to other very skilled hands before my eventual though not-yet-scheduled, retirement again.”
Also participating in the service by reading scripture and offering prayers were: Rabbi Susan Goldberg of Nefesh, Echo Park; Kel Mitchel, son of the Rev. Canon Hank and Canon Mari Mitchel and Williams’ godson; the Rev. Canon Tony Jewiss, retired deputy executive officer of the General Convention of The Episcopal Church; Sarah Newman, board vice-chair, Neighborhood Youth Association; Neva Rae Fox, of the Living Church Foundation; and Canon Lurelean Gaines, senior warden of St. John’s Cathedral, who offered a prayer from former poet-in-residence the Rev. Canon Malcolm Boyd’s acclaimed book, “Are You Running with Me, Jesus?”
Swami Mahayoganda of the Vedanta Society and president of the Interreligious Council of Southern California offered a closing benediction, chanting the word peace in Arabic, Hebrew, Sanskrit and English, “Salám, shalom, shanti, peace.”
In other events marking his 40 years of service, Williams was recognized Feb. 8 during Choral Evensong at his parish church, St. James’, Los Angeles, and will give a talk on “Futuring” at the Immaculate Heart Community’s Feb. 13 Lunch and Learn gathering (registration here) at St. Paul’s Commons, Echo Park.