Rev. Roberto Ochoa

Reverend Roberto Ochoa was born in 1954 and was raised in the east Los Angeles neighborhood of Lincoln Heights in California. His family was a Hispanic bi-cultural mix of New Mexican “Spanish” and Mexican. His mother, Maria Elena, was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico where her family lineage can be traced from the earliest years of Spanish colonization in the 17th century. This side of the family did not recognize being of Mexican descent and identified with their Spanish roots. They adhered to the myth of “European” purity that ran in their blood; intermarriage with the Indigenous population was not only frowned upon but forbidden for inheritance purposes. Roberto’s father, Carlos, was born in the Mexican border town of Nogales, Sonora. However, he was raised in the capital city of Sonora, Hermosillo, and very proud of his mestizo (European/Indian) heritage. Roberto’s parents’ coupling was not enthusiastically received and both sides of the families looked down upon the other due to cultural differences. Roberto was the oldest of seven children in this close-knit family. The family dynamics included a strong macho patriarchal strain ruled by his dad and enabled by his mom.

The family was a very devout Roman Catholic household with strong Latine religious traditions and festivals. They loved the church and many of their social interactions (birthdays, first communion, weddings, funerals, and feast days of the saints) included a strong religious element. Roberto attended Catholic school for the first three years of elementary education before he transferred to the local public school (due to financial crisis). Religious instruction was still present through a religious instruction day on Fridays, where children all marched to their respective faith-based institutions in the afternoons. Since the Ochoa’s neighborhood was primarily Mexican/Latine/Hispanic, most of the children attended the local Catholic church which was, in many respects, an extension of community.

Roberto attended junior and senior high at the Abraham Lincoln High School in Lincoln Heights. He considered himself very spiritual through his teen-aged years…and even felt the call to the priesthood at 14. His parents were not supportive of this vocation. He was also beginning to discover his sexuality during this time.

Roberto studied at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, from 1972 to 1975, but did not graduate. In 1976, he had a mystical encounter with Jesus Christ at the same time he had publicly come out as gay. This merging of spirituality and sexuality centered around a colleague named Marie who came up to him at work and asked, “Roberto, are you saved?” Roberto remembers how his emotions ran high in that moment, mingled as they were with the pain of the Catholic Church’s dismissal of who he was and his own family’s rejection. “No, I am not saved because I’m gay, and everyone knows that God hates gays!” Roberto responded. Yet Marie never flinched. Her response still echoes in Roberto’s memory: “Oh, Roberto, that is not true. God loves you as you are, right now.” Roberto recorded what happened next in his written account given to the United Church of Christ (UCC): “Then she softly touched my chest and I fell to my knees and was suddenly overcome by an unseen power and emotion. I wept into Marie’s arms. That was the first time I received any affirmation that God loved me as I AM. As Marie cradled me, I felt a sense of comfort and reassurance I never felt before. As if a voice whispered in my ear, ‘You are my son whom I love and I have never left your side.’ I allowed Marie to pray over me and without saying it, I accepted Jesus as my savior at that very moment.”

This encounter affirmed for Roberto his totality as a child of the Divine and Jesus as the catalyst that sent him on a course to explore, learn, and eventually preach the gospel of the expansive inclusion of God’s love for all from a Christian perspective.

Roberto served in the U.S. Air Force from 1976 to 1979 stationed in Grand Forks AFB, North Dakota during the time Air Force Staff Sargeant Leonard Matlovich made national news for suing the Air Force for the right to serve as an openly gay man. In 1979, Roberto came out to his flight commanders as gay and received an honorable discharge.

Upon his return to the Los Angeles area, he connected with the Metropolitan Community Church there. He quickly rose into positions of leadership there serving on church boards, coordinating Christian education and being a Regional District and General Conference delegate. He also served in national leadership positions with MCC: on the Executive Board for Hispanic American and Spanish Speaking Ministries; on the UFMCC Ecumenical Outreach Task Force; and on UFMCC’s Ecumenical AIDS Ministry Task Force. He became a frequent preacher and presenter on cross cultural ministries. He served as co-coordinator of the National People of Color Conference in Los Angeles in 1988.

Roberto attests that his involvement in HIV/AIDS ministries from the early 1980s spurred his understanding of his call to Christian ministry. He perceived the particular religious and spiritual contributions of LGBTQAI+ communities and has written, presented and taught about these beginning in 1985.

In the late 1980’s, Roberto, along with local Los Angeles area LGBTQ Latine/a/o artists and activists, formed VIVAarte a collective of writers, poets, visual and performance artists. Roberto wrote what is believed to be the first play to explore the complexities of Chicano/a identity, spirituality and sexuality which included marriage equality entitled “Santa Union” (Holy Union) and it was produced by VIVAarte for a three-week theatrical run in Hollywood, California, in 1988.

In 1990, taking a break from pursuing ministry in MCC, Roberto began attending the First Presbyterian Church of Baldwin Park, California, one of the first “More Light” congregation which affirmed the total inclusivity of the LGBTQ community in their church and soon served as the Hispanic/Latino outreach ministry coordinator and established AIDS outreach and educational ministries for Baldwin Park and San Gabriel Valley.

While in Baldwin Park, Roberto served on the city planning commission as an openly gay man and was named Citizen of the Year in 1994. During this period Roberto also worked on spiritual reconciliation with his family which was comprised of a wide spectrum of people with diverse political, theological and cultural beliefs. In spite of these differences, Roberto and his family members built close ties of love and respect, which was a long journey from the separation when Roberto first came out. Roberto sees his family as a model for how diverse communities can strive for and find reconciliation.

Roberto and his former partner of fifteen years opened a coffee house and community art gallery in Baldwin Park. However, due to an array of circumstances they had to close it in 1996 and decided to move to Worcester, Massachusetts. They ended their relationship in 1997. Roberto was ready to return to Los Angeles when he met the man he would ultimately legally marry, James Carnevale, and decided to stay in Worcester.

While in Worcester, Roberto again continued to be civically and socially active with the city, serving on the Elder Affairs Commission and on the Planning Board. Roberto was also active with the local Latinx community. Roberto worked for 10 years in the cable entertainment industry in supervisory roles in customer and service. In 2010, Roberto became a certified housing counselor which would lead him to a position as Director for Housing Consumer Education in a local nonprofit organization. Roberto also co-hosted a weekly local cable television series “Worcester Latino” from 2006-2008, which showcase the contributions of the Latinx communities to Worcester and surrounding communities.

In 1999, Roberto became a member of United Congregational Church in Worcester, an Open and Affirming congregation of the United Church of Christ. He was an active member for several years. Roberto’s roles included Sunday school teacher, youth mentor, Bible study, church trustee, working with the homeless, home visiting, ecumenical and community outreach.

Roberto connected with Lake View Congregational Church (UCC) in Worcester, Massachusetts in 2010 and served as a lay pastor there from 2011 to 2018. Lake View had multilingual/cultural partnerships in worship and service with Iglesia Comunidad Cristana (UCC) and Igreja Bautista (ABC), a Brazilian congregation. During this time, he studied at Andover Newton Theological School where he earned an M.Div degree in 2017 with a Certificate in Ethics and Social Justice and Certificate in Spiritual and Pastoral Care.

As Roberto developed expertise in ministry in multicultural and Latinx communities, he was called into regional and national leadership positions in the UCC in this arena. He chaired the Massachusetts Conference’s Hispanic/Latin Ministries Working Team from 2015 to 2018. He was president of the Hispanic Ministry Council of New England from 2014 to 2017 and treasurer of the UCC National Council of Hispanic Ministries from 2014 to 2017. He worked as facilitator for UCC Latinx Ministries Focus Groups in New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island and served as a member of the UCC Proyecto Encuentros de Gracia y Bienvenida, of the UCC Collaboration for Immigration and Refugees and of the Massachusetts Conference’s Immigration and Refugee Task Team. Roberto served on the Open and Affirming Task Force for the Massachusetts Conference of the UCC. He also was a delegate to General Synod in 2015 and 2017.

In May 2018, Roberto accepted a position on the national UCC staff in Cleveland, Ohio, as Program Associate for Communities of Color. In that role he served as UCC staff representative to the Ecumenical Partnership in Outreach (EPO), the Rural Church Network, the Latino Christian Church Network, The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries, the UCC Council on Racial and Ethnic Ministries and the Coalition for UCC Rural Ministries.

In 2020, Roberto was one of the producers and hosts for the weekly You Tube “Tuesdays for Nurture” and “Thursdays for the Soul” webinars presented by the National Ministries of the United Church of Christ until 2024.

He was ordained as clergy by the Living Waters Association of the UCC on October 24, 2021. In January 2022, he became Minister for Ethnic Inclusion and Congregational Support for Rural and Small Churches.

In Cleveland he was a member of Mt. Zion Congregational Church UCC, a historic Afro-American congregation, since 2018 and has served as a member of the congregation’s Ministerium since 2019, and as a facilitator of Grief Share ministry. Roberto was a Member in Discernment at Mt Zion where his ordination took place.

In 2024, Roberto was called and elected as Conference Minister for the 250 congregations that make up the Iowa-Nebraska-South Dakota Conferences of the United Church of Christ. He began his position on January 2, 2025.

Roberto was in a committed relationship with James Carnevale for 26 years (married for the last 11 of those years) until his death in 2023. Roberto has served on the Board of Directors for LGBTQ-RAN since 2023.

(This biographical statement written by Kristofer Stinson and Mark Bowman from information provided by Roberto Ochoa and was edited by Ochoa).

Biography Date: April 2025

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