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Rev. Peter John Gomes
(May 22, 1942 - February 28, 2011) U.S.A.

Peter John Gomes

Preacher, theologian

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Gomes was born in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the son of Orissa, née White, and Peter Lobo Gomes. His father was from the Cape Verde islands and his mother was African American. He was baptized as a Roman Catholic, but later became an American Baptist.

After earning his AB from Bates College in 1965 and STB from Harvard Divinity School in 1968, Gomes was ordained by the First Baptist Church of Plymouth, Massachusetts. After a two-year tenure at the Tuskegee Institute, he returned in 1970 to Harvard, where he became Pusey Minister in Harvard's nondenominational Memorial Church, and in 1974 was made Plummer Professor of Christian Morals.

In 2000, he delivered the University Sermon at the University of Cambridge and the Millennial Sermon in Canterbury Cathedral, and presented the Beecher Lectures on Preaching at Yale Divinity School.

Gomes was also a visiting professor at Duke University and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Profiled by Robert Boynton in The New Yorker, and interviewed by Morley Safer on 60 Minutes, Gomes was included in the premiere issue of Talk magazine as part of its feature article, "The Best Talkers in America: Fifty Big Mouths We Hope Will Never Shut Up."

In 1991 Gomes identified himself publicly as gay, though adding that he remained celibate, and became an advocate of acceptance of homosexuality in American society and particularly in religion.

Gomes was a registered Republican for most of his life, and offered prayers at the inaugurals of United States Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. In August 2006, he changed his registration to the Democratic Party (United States), supporting the candidacy of Deval Patrick, who was that year elected the first African-American governor of Massachusetts. (Gomes and Patrick had become friends during Patrick's undergraduate days at Harvard.)

Hospitalized after a stroke in December, 2010, Gomes hoped to return to Memorial Church in time for the following Easter. He died three months later.

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Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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