Priest Profile

MEET DEACON BILL & SYLVIA COBBETT

SAINTS SIMON & JUDE CHURCH, HUNTINGTON BEACH

By STAFF     12/8/2016

YEARS MARRIED: 50

CHILDREN: 1

GRANDCHILDREN: 2

YEARS IN THE DIACONATE: 17

HOW THEY MET: “I was a young officer in the Royal Navy stationed on the island of Malta in the Mediterranean. I met Sylvia at a carnival party.”

WHAT DREW HIM TO THE DIACONATE: “The opportunity to participate more fully in the life of the Church and, because I have been so richly blessed in my married life, to give something back to the community”

HIS ROLE IN THE CHURCH: “The role of deacon is the servant who ministers wherever he is needed. Sylvia and I have spent a good deal of our ministry in marriage preparation and the support of married couples, but like most deacons, we get involved in all sorts of unexpected and interested situations.”

HIS MOST MEMORABLE EXPERIENCE: “At Bishop Soto’s request, Sylvia and I were for many years the diocesan liaison to ‘Koinonia,’ what was at that time an active support group for the LGBT Catholics and their families. It was a challenging and very rewarding ministry that taught both of us a great deal about compassion in the face of pain and understanding in the face of intolerance and misinformation.”

FAVORITE SCRIPTURE: Matthew 22:35-40 — “[A] scholar of the law tested him by asking, ‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.’”