The Rev. Tita Valeriano, ordained Lutheran minister, pastor, mission developer, openly-gay, partnered, mother, member of the Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries’s Proclaim, presided as celebrant at the Friday worship service during the ELCA Churchwide Assembly.
A graduate of the Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, Tita has served as a congregational pastor, as Secretary for Youth in Church and Society for the Lutheran World Federation, as a campus pastor, and as the Regional Officer for the Lutheran World Federation located in the ELCA offices in Chicago.
ReconcilingWorks celebrates this historic moment and Tita’s witness and leadership towards full inclusion.
Of her life journey, Tita has said “To have been born in the Philippines, a third generation Lutheran and the youngest in a family of twelve children, to be born with all the gifts and weaknesses that I have, everything of who I am and now serving in this context of North America; those, I believe, are gifts of God to me. Of course I did not choose my gender, or my nationality, or my sexual orientation, but I have been honored to be a participant in this journey God has given me, to live out these gifts.”