Salt Lake City, USA - The Rev. Peter Morales of Colorado has been elected as the first Latino president of the Unitarian Universalist Association.
Morales, senior minister of Jefferson Unitarian Church in Golden, Colo., was elected to the post June 27 at the Unitarian General Assembly in Salt Lake City. Morales succeeds the Rev. William G. Sinkford who has served two four-year terms.
Unitarians, who have roots in a movement that rejected Puritan orthodoxy in New England, support a free search for spiritual truth.
Atheists and pagans are a significant part of their membership. Jews, Buddhists, Christians and others sometimes join to maintain their traditions without having to accept, wholesale, their denominations' creed. Unitarians are estimated to have about 200,000 members nationwide.
"I want to grow our faith, to reach all those people who are looking for non-dogmatic, liberal religious community," Morales said in a statement after he was elected.
"I look forward to working with partners in many other progressive and justice-seeking religious groups. There are tremendous issues that we'll be facing in the coming years and we're going to need one another."
Separately, the United Church of Christ also elected a new president, the Rev. Geoffrey Black, who has served for nearly a decade as minister of the denomination's New York district. The liberal-leaning Protestant church says it has about 1.1 million members.