Seminary of the Southwest has announced the speaker and date for the 53rd Annual Blandy Lecture and Symposium.
The Rt. Rev. Hector Monterroso, bishop assistant in the diocese of Texas, will present the Blandy Lecture on Wednesday, November 10, 2021, beginning at 6:30pm CST.
“We are excited to welcome Bishop Hector Monterroso to our campus this November as our Blandy speaker,” said the Very Rev. Cynthia Briggs Kitredge. “Bishop Monterroso does important work to grow a multicultural presence in congregations in the diocese of Texas, and and his efforts to find people in Hispanic congregations who may want to become a priest make him an outstanding speaker as the seminary has a similar focus.”
Bishop Monterroso will present a talk on ‘Embracing the Multicultural Future of the Church.’ Immediately following, a Continuing Education session designed by the Iona Collaborative and Southwest’s Director of Latinx Studies, the Rev. Nancy Frausto will leave attendees with practical resources for addressing the opportunities and challenges Bishop Monterroso will highlight.
Southwest is offering this year’s Blandy free of charge, and will be presented in a hybrid format.
From the diocese of Texas website:
A native of Guatemala, the Rt. Rev. Hector F. Monterroso served as bishop of Costa Rica for 14 years before becoming bishop assistant in the Diocese of Texas, July 1, 2017.
His father’s professional soccer career proved to be an opener for him in gathering people to a new worshiping community. “My training in the seminary did not include how to [plant] new churches,” he said, but with his inherited soccer skills, he soon made headway. “People couldn’t believe that a priest could play soccer. I visited many small towns where the people came to learn that I was the priest of the new church. Many young people came to the church to meet and to play on my soccer team. Eventually, we had our own soccer team sponsored by the Episcopal Church. It was good advertising,” he laughed.
In addition to his experience as a missionary, and as Bishop of Costa Rica, Bishop Monterroso also served as Secretary General of Province IX (1986-2000); as editor of the Revista Anglicanos for 16 years, a magazine that served the Hispanic diaspora in the Anglican Communion; and as Secretary General of the Anglican Church of the Central Region of America. During his tenure in Costa Rica, he secured its financial stability, increased the number of clergy from seven to 29, assured that most congregations were self-sustaining, and gained governmental recognition and support for many of the Diocese’s programs.
In Texas, Bishop Monterroso will continue to strengthen the growth in both Hispanic congregations as well as new missional communities and church plants. He will visit 45 congregations during the year; primarily in the southern region of the Diocese of Texas; chair the board of St. Vincent’s House, a social service agency in Galveston; support growth of multicultural presence in all congregations and help to create a strategy for new ethnic church plants and missional communities. Additionally, Assistant Bishop Monterroso will work to identify vocational leaders within the Hispanic congregations.
Bishop Monterroso earned an engineering degree and attended seminary at night while working for a rum company. He was ordained as a deacon in 1986, a priest in 1987 in the Diocese of Guatemala and consecrated as the Bishop of Costa Rica on June 7, 2003. He and his wife, Sandra Cardona, have two grown children: María Beatriz, a medical doctor in Costa Rica, and Héctor Ramón, a civil engineer.
